ST. LOUIS — Whatever runs the Miami Marlins were able to create with the help of replay or a sinking liner to center was going to be enough when the Cardinals could not muster much of a threat at all.

Marlins ascending starter Max Meyer held the Cardinals to two infield singles through seven scoreless innings and led his team to a 4-0 victory Friday night at Busch Stadium.

Miami scored a pair of runs in their final two at-bats and took the lead just in time to beat a brief rain delay in the eighth inning and assure Meyer the win. The right-hander improved to 9-0 this season. The Cardinals were shut out for the fifth time this season.

They’ve lost six of their past eight games.

Marlins leadoff hitter Jakob Marsee had a two-run single to center in the top of the ninth inning to double Miami’s lead. That set the final score, but it was Meyer who shaped it.

While not necessarily a household name or headline-grabbing ace, Meyer is every bit the leader of a rotation and a likely All-Star.

In his first full season as a starter in the majors, Meyer entered Friday’s game with an 8-0 record and a 2.80 ERA through his first 16 starts. He struck out 102 in his first 90 innings of the season, and he has been stingy throughout the month of June. He’d yet to allow more than two runs in any of his four previous starts this month, and two of his final three starts of May were scoreless outings.

The third overall pick in the 2020 draft, Meyer swiftly asserted the same hold on Friday’s game. With help from a caught stealing he initiated in the second inning, Meyer got 13 outs from the first 13 Cardinals he faced. The two singles he allowed were both infield singles to the third baseman, and neither of the Cardinals who hit them advanced past first base.

The Cardinals did not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position until the seventh inning, and even then it was Meyer walking them into it.

Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy matched Meyer zero for zero through six innings. McGreevy authored his 10th quality start of the season. Four of his past five starts have been quality starts and the one exception was against the Royals in this past weekend’s Jiffy-Pop-like offensive experience at Kauffman Stadium.

McGreevy zips past singles, through 6

From the beginning of the game, the Marlins were able to generate chances.

McGreevy just kept them from exploiting them.

The Cardinals right-hander’s only walk of his start went to the second batter he faced. Miami outfielder Griffin Conine, a second generation Marlin, accepted the one-out walk in the first inning and eventually got as far as third base. He would watch the inning come to an end there. Despite allowing the walk and a single, McGreevy’s ability to get meek contact came him exit ramps out of every rally.

A leadoff single in the second was erased by a double play.

Back-to-back singles in the third inning yielded nothing for the Marlins when McGreevy struck out All-Star Kyle Stowers to end the inning.

An infield single to start the fifth was neutralized with a pickoff.

Throughout his six innings, McGreevy kept the Marlins just off-balance enough to let them tease a run only to leave the inning frustrated. Even McGreevy’s 94th and final pitch has the Marlins shaking their heads. Stowers took it for a called strike three but challenged the call to turn it over to the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) system. The review played on the scoreboard to show a pitch closer to the middle of the strike zone than the edge.

McGreevy finished his quality start and six innings with his fourth strikeout of the game before turning the scoreless tie to the bullpen.

Run, then rain — and a replay

After the Marlins had their first run and the game had its first rain delay, the Cardinals nearly pulled off a slick double play to avoid further trouble.

It took lengthy review of video replay to reveal they came up shy.

Against reliever George Soriano, the Cardinals mustered the game’s first genuine rally in the top of the eighth inning. Two batters into the inning, the Marlins had a 1-0 lead and the Cardinals grounds crew was sprinting onto the field to pull the tarp before a cloudburst arrived over the ballpark. Ruiz opened the inning with a single, and he stole second to get into scoring position behind Soriano (3-2). No. 9 hitter Graham Pauley then doubled down the first base line.

The ball was close enough to the line to spur questions on whether it was fair or foul, but because the call was made in front of the first-base ump the Cardinals did not have access to replay.

There wasn’t much time to debate.

Moments after Ruiz crossed the plate, the grounds crew was on the field to cover it for a 27-minute rain delay.

When the game resumed, so did the Marlins.

Soriano walked two batters to load the bases ahead of cleanup hitter Stowers.

The All-Star pulled a grounder to first base that Alec Burleson gloved. He toed first base as he took a stride toward home, and then delivered a throw just ahead of the runner’s slide. Pauley’s left arm, Ivan Herrera’s mitt, and the edge of home plate all converged at the same time. Home-plate umpire Junior Valentine ruled Pauley out for the double play.

The tag by Herrera would have ended the inning and held the Marlins to a 1-0 lead.

With a run (or more) at stake it was a no-brainer to challenge.

The review of the video in New York by officials ultimately decided the Pauley got his hand to the plate before Herrera applied a tag. Instead of the end of the inning, the Cardinals had an 0-2 deficit.

Cards can’t walk into run

The Cardinals did not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position against Meyer until the seventh inning, and even then it took a few assists from the right-hander.

Meyer did what other pitchers have routinely this season and plunked Cardinals catcher Ivan Herrera with a pitch.

Herrera took first to lead off the seventh and stir the first real chance to crack Meyer.

By the end of the inning, the Cardinals would earn three baserunners but not collect a hit to breakthrough against Meyer. The right-hander hit Herrea and walked left-handed batters AlBurleson and Lars Nootbaar to eventually load the bases. He got ground balls from the two right-handed batters in the mix — Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn — to cool the Cardinals’ chances. They had the bases loaded with one out, and that was about as good as it got for the Cardinals. Winn bounced a grounder into the Marlins’ drawn-in infield so that shortstop Otto Lopez had a play at the plate to throw out Herrera.

Miami stayed with Meyer through all the traffic he created, and when he had nowhere to put another left-handed bat — Nathan Church — he challenged him.

Church lashed a line drive toward the left-field line that outfielder Esteury Ruiz down for the final out of the inning.

The first four chances with a runner in scoring position resulted in three outs and a walk.

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