ATLANTA — The reason St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol gave early Tuesday afternoon at Truist Park for wanting to give Nolan Gorman a “run” with a lot of playing time arrived just in time that evening for the Cardinals to end their sidewinding road skid.

Gorman, the young infielder searching for his swing since returning from a hamstring injury, struck out twice and was hitless in his four previous at-bats before the eighth inning. In the sixth, with the bases loaded and his team aching for some hitter to upend the trends, Gorman flew out to center field, furious as he missed the chance.

But, as Marmol noted when he connects consistently, he often doubles.

When he connected again in the eighth, he doubled.

Gorman cleared the bases with a double down the right-field line that shattered a tie game and lifted the Cardinals to a 10-4 victory against the Atlanta Braves. Victor Scott II, who ignited the eight-inning rally, added on with another double in the ninth for an RBI, a run and his second consecutive three-hit game. The late burst of runs meant the Cardinals’ five-game losing streak on this road trip was over and out. And that ninth-inning lagniappe meant when they called on closer Ryan Helsley for the first time in six days there wasn’t a save situation.

Eagerness and patience set up the game-winning rally for the Cardinals in the eighth.

Scott, in his first big-league series in his hometown, revved the inning with a one-out flare to left field that his aggressive baserunning stretched into a double. The inning threatened to come apart when Atlanta reliever Enyel De Los Santos struck out Masyn Winn. That allowed De Los Santos to intentionally walk Lars Nootbaar for the more favorable, right-on-right matchup with Willson Contreras.

The Cardinals’ first baseman had an eventful evening with a leaping, lunging catch of a liner in the early innings. He also was pegged by a foul ball. And then in the eighth he had the at-bat that made Gorman’s double possible. Contreras fell behind in the count, fouled off three pitches and hung in for a nine-pitch walk. Gorman followed with the game’s deciding hit.

Atlanta’s lineup proved both powerful and fortuitous, leaving the Cardinals to constantly hopscotch through or around trouble, sometimes of their own making.

Austin Riley got three infield singles, the longest of which barely got to Nolan Arenado as he charged in from third to attempt a barehanded play. Batting third behind Riley, former Cardinals outfielder Marcell Ozuna walked four times. The duo combined to reach base eight times. The Cardinals made a choice to pitch around Ozuna in the late innings Monday and not let one of the game’s top designated hitters beat them, and there was a whiff of that Tuesday, too. Cardinals starter Andre Pallante walked Ozuna twice, and in the seventh, Matz walked him before retiring the next three batters to get the tie game into the eighth.

The win for the Cardinals came on the day Atlanta started Scott Blewett after putting Spencer Strider on the injured list. Less than four weeks into the season, Blewett has already pitched for three different teams in the majors as he’s bounced off and on rosters. Atlanta planned a bullpen game with Aaron Bummer next into the mix.

Look for the helpers

The third pitcher into the game for Atlanta proved the most generous.

The Cardinals had been stalled at the two runs created by Nootbaar’s home run in the third inning, and their best chance to score since then also involved a helping hand from Atlanta. In the fifth, a walk and a hit batter put two Cardinals on base before the rally fizzled. In the sixth, with the Cardinals trailing by to runs, reliever Rafael Montero allowed a leadoff single that skipped past second baseman Ozzie Albies and then walked two to load the bases.

Winn followed with an RBI single that slipped between two infielders.

The rest was up to Atlanta.

After Montero allowed two singles and walked two batters of the five he faced, reliever Dylan Lee entered the inning with the bases loaded. He struck out Nootbaar and then misfired a wild pitch that allowed Jordan Walker to score and tie the game.

In the inning, the Cardinals combined two singles to cut Atlanta’s lead in half, and then they exploited a walk and a wild pitch to knot the game, 4-4.

The unraveling

It took two innings for the lead the Cardinals had and the starter Andre Pallante had going to completely come undone, but it did so with gusto.

In the span of 10 pitches and a flurry of extra-base hits, Pallante lost the two-run lead seized by Nootbaar’s fourth home run of the season.

Atlanta sparked the rally on back-to-back pitches.

A day after delivering the winning run with a three-run launch, catcher Sean Murphy dented Pallante’s scoreless line with a home run on an 86.7-mph slider. Pallante’s next pitch – a 93.3-mph fastball – Jarred Kelenic roped for a double. Two batters later, Kelenic scored when leadoff hitter Alex Verdugo drilled a sinker for a double into the right-center gap. A wild pitch put Verdugo at third, and he scored easily on Riley’s first infield single.

Pallante’s frustration was clear as he went to grab Riley’s RBI grounder and instead of pocketing it, he flung it in the direction of first base. The error allowed Riley to reach second, and the inning could have gotten worse from there if not for Ozuna grounding out.

Five batters, 10 pitches and a 2-0 lead became a 3-2 deficit.

The trouble for Pallante continued in the fifth inning, but started surfacing in the third. The right-hander walked two and allowed an infield single to load the bases. He was able to assert control of the inning by striking out Albies on four pitches. Pallante buzzed a 95.4-mph fastball past Albies to start the expedient at-bat and ended it with a 94.7-mph fastball. That stranded three runners in the inning, but instead of a pivot for the game it proved a harbinger.

The three extra-base hits in the fourth generated the three runs, and the fifth inning started the same. When Pallante returned to begin that inning, Matt Olson greeted him with a solo homer to increase Atlanta’s lead to 4-2.

Going Vaudeville

There was a moment in the fourth inning when the series of events in the play by play seemed straight out of an Abbott and Costello routine. Atlanta replaced its starter Blewett with Bummer. Atlanta knew it would be difficult to slow the Cardinals if they didn’t avoid Blewett. Bummer was inheriting a runner. The Cardinals would get two runners on base in the inning but they did not score a run.

That was Bummer for the Cardinals because Atlanta chose not to Blewett.

And the thing that put all of this in motion?

A walk … to Walker.

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