CHICAGO — The baseball Yohel Pozo crushed to radically change the St. Louis Cardinals’ fortunes at Wrigley Field left a vapor trail as it reached Waveland Avenue and an exhale as its results stirred his teammates in the dugout.

Down by two runs when the inning began and facing the heat of a squandered lead and potentially wasted weekend, the Cardinals got the lift from an increasingly likely source.

For the third time in the past week, Pozo came off the bench to pinch-hit and delivered just that — though none bigger than Saturday’s. Pozo worked the count full against Chicago Cubs reliever Brad Keller, and when he got a slider, Pozo turned it into a souvenir. His three-run homer shattered a tie and catapulted the Cardinals toward an 8-6 victory.

Ryan Helsley pitched a scoreless ninth to secure his 17th save.

The Cardinals’ decisive eighth-inning rally was bookended by homers. Alec Burleson started it with a solo shot that cleaved the Cubs’ lead in half. From there a flare, a bunt single, and a clutch base hit tied the game. Thomas Saggese flipped a single to right, Lars Nootbaar dropped the bunt, and Nolan Gorman delivered the single for his second RBI of the game and a 5-5 knot. Gorman had homered earlier, giving him home runs in three consecutive starts by his boyhood teammate and longtime friend, Matthew Liberatore.

Immediately after Gorman’s single, Pozo came up to pinch-hit for catcher Pedro Pages. Pozo was quickly down 1-2 in the count when he fouled off two sliders. When Keller went back to the breaking ball, Pozo pounced for his third homer.

The Cardinals’ losing streak ended at four games.

They have a chance to win a series Sunday that started so historically awful Friday.

Liberatore cooled the Cubs after their record-setting eight homers on Friday, but not without some laborious innings of his own. The lefty has 14 starts this season when he’s walked one or fewer batters, and he had two walks in the first inning. He held the Cubs scoreless but it took him two strikeouts and facing six batters to find those three outs, the last two of which came with the bases loaded.

Liberatore did not have a perfect inning until his final inning, and even that one took his pitch count right up to 94 mph. It was his swiftest, but it also came after several grinding innings, including one that spun on a wild pitch.

He limited the Cubs to two runs on four hits.

But the grind of the game sent the Cardinals to the bullpen for the sixth and beyond.

As part of the Cubs capitalizing quickly on relievers, former Cardinals catching prospect Carson Kelly had a double in that sixth inning and a solo homer in the seventh that fueled the Cubs’ two-run lead.

That vanished in the Cardinals’ burst of runs in the top of the eighth.

Cards’ opening act

Aware the Cubs were using one of their relievers as an opener Saturday, the Cardinals adjusted their batting order slightly to get the right-handed-hitting Willson Contreras up, for sure, against the lefty Drew Pomeranz.

Whether it was the lineup or the approach, both worked.

Three of the four batters Pomeranz faced reached base before his pitch count inched toward 30 and the Cubs’ opener was out of the game without closing the first inning. Leadoff hitter Brendan Donovan set the tone with a 10-pitch walk against Pomeranz. The Cardinals’ second baseman fouled off four consecutive pitches with a full count before earning the walk that put the inning motion.

By its end, the Cardinals saw 39 pitches from two different Cubs, sent seven batters to the plate and took a 2-0 lead before Liberatore left the dugout.

The batter moved up in the lineup, Contreras, walked. And the batter he swapped spots with, Alec Burleson, singled to center to load the bases.

That brought up Thomas Saggese.

A last-minute addition to the lineup, Saggese took over at third and also hit fifth — where Nolan Arenado was originally written. The Cardinals’ veteran third baseman was a late scratch due to a right shoulder impingement. The team considers him day-to-day, and right from the start Saggese was thrust into the moment. Saggese faced the second pitcher of the bullpen game when the Cubs called on right-hander Chris Flexen.

Saggese took a swing at every pitch — except crucially one where he was able to check his swing. That was the umpire’s ruling much to the dismay of the booing home crowd.

Saggese made the most of the reprieve with a two-run single.

His lash to right field brought home both Donovan and Contreras.

Flexen stiffened from there and got two fly-balls to strand two Cardinals in scoring position in the first inning.

Wild ways to rally

The Cubs’ rallies to narrow the game and then overtake the Cardinals both hinged around wild pitches that either prolonged the inning or led directly to runs.

Michael Busch followed his second-inning solo homer off Liberatore with a leadoff double in the fourth inning. Liberatore walked Nico Hoerner, and then a wild pitch moved both of them into scoring position. That proved fruitful for the Cubs even though Busch was thrown out at home to momentarily protect the Cardinals’ two-run lead.

Hoerner, however, remained at second base.

He was then the front half of a double steal, and because he reached third safely, a ground-ball from leadoff hitter Ian Happ brought home a run.

In the Cubs’ sixth-inning reversal of the score, two wild pitches allowed the Cubs to either get into scoring position — or score the go-head run. Busch did both. His single with Kelly already at second base put runners at the corners. He took second on a wild pitch that didn’t get far enough away from Pages for the runner at third to score. On Hoerner’s flare to center that brought home Kelly to tie the game, 3-3, Busch took third.

When Kyle Leahy’s next wild pitch got away from Pages, Busch trotted home without a challenge to give the Cubs their first lead of the game, 4-3.

Leahy faced four batters and all three hits.

His wild pitch brought in as many runs as any hit did.

Matz gets key out, allows key run

In relief of Leahy, lefty Steven Matz took over the problematic sixth inning when the top of the Cubs’ lineup got involved. The Cardinals lefty walked two batters — both of them right-handed — and that set up more favorable matches against the left-handed hitters spaced around them.

It did, however, mean facing Pete Crow-Armstrong with the bases loaded.

The young outfielder, about to start in his first All-Star Game, had four hits Friday and two home runs in the Cubs’ rout. He was hitless Saturday when Matz (5-2) faced him. It took three pitches for the lefty to end the inning, stranded the bases loaded, and retire Crow-Armstrong. The final two pitches were 96-mph sinkers that Crow-Armstrong could not connect on.

Matz came out to pitch the seventh inning as well, and wedged between strikeouts was Kelly’s solo homer to left field that put the Cubs ahead 5-3.

That lead would not outlast the eighth inning and one Pozo swing assured the Cubs would not retake it.

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