Sonny Gray shines, offense provides enough in Cardinals' 2-0 win against Rangers

Daniel Guerrero, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on May 31, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ARLINGTON, Texas — Behind the 19th double-digit strikeout game of starter Sonny Gray’s career and his second such performance this season, the two runs the Cardinals produced were enough to come away with a win versus the Rangers on Saturday at Globe Life Field.

Limited to one run on Friday, the Cardinals took their first lead of the weekend series in the second inning on a sacrifice fly from Nolan Arenado that plated Willson Contreras. They added to that lead in the fourth inning with a double from Contreras that scored Masyn Winn, who led off the inning with a double of his own against Rangers starter Patrick Corbin.

The two runs the Cardinals (33-25) scratched across in a 2-0 win backed what was arguably Gray’s strongest outing of the year.

Gray totaled 10 strikeouts and kept the Rangers to four hits and no runs across seven innings. Gray matched his season highs in strikeouts and innings pitched in the process, while walking one batter.

The right-hander began his afternoon by collecting two strikeouts in his first inning of work. He rattled off four consecutive strikeouts that spanned the second and third innings and collected another two in the seventh to help him reach 1,800 strikeouts for his career.

The seven scoreless innings lowered Gray’s ERA to 3.65 and marked his fourth scoreless outing of six or more innings this season. Entering Saturday, Gray was tied with Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers, Kansas City’s Kris Bubic and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal for the most starts of six or more innings and no runs allowed.

A hold from Phil Maton in the eighth inning that was aided by a double play initiated on a ground ball fielded by Arenado and a save from Ryan Helsley completed the Cardinals’ seventh shutout win of the season and first since May 17 in Kansas City. The save was Helsley's 13th of the year.

Silencing the Rangers

After Gray needed 18 pitches to get through a scoreless first inning, the right-hander’s ability to land strikes and get swings and misses helped him keep the Rangers offense grounded with efficiency for the rest of the afternoon.

The only batter to reach base against Gray between Corey Seager’s one-out single in the first inning and Jake Burger’s single in the fifth was Alejandro Osuna, who walked on four pitches in the second frame but was thrown out trying to steal second base by catcher Pedro Pages.

Gray ended his second inning with a strikeout of Sam Haggerty and followed that by striking out the three batters he faced in the third inning on 12 pitches. Two of Gray’s three strikeouts in the third inning ended with whiffs on his sweeper.

Gray needed 11 pitches to get through the fourth frame during which he induced two groundouts and ended the frame with a flyout of Josh Jung.

Getting out of the fifth

When he had runners reach first and third base with two outs in the fifth inning as the control on his sweeper momentarily slipped away, Gray’s use of his sinker helped him keep Texas searching for a run.

In a 2-1 count to Kyle Higashioka, Gray got a sinker to land for a called strike and had another sinker fouled off by Higashioka. After a third sinker missed away to the right-handed hitting catcher, Gray offered a 93.1-mph sinker over the middle of the plate that Higashioka skied to center field for a routine fly out hauled in by Victor Scott II.

Gray retired six of the last seven batters he faced before Maton entered from the bullpen.

The sharp afternoon from the 35-year-old righty was bookended by a strikeout of Burger, who whiffed on a sweeper, a groundout against Haggerty that kept Osuna stranded on first base following his one-out single.

Contreras’ contributions

As the first Cardinal to reach base on Saturday, Contreras represented his team’s first run and drove in their second.

Contreras began his afternoon with a walk to leadoff the second inning in a seven-pitch sequence against Corbin. During his at-bat against Corbin, Contreras hooked the fifth pitch he saw, a 2-2 sinker, down the left-field line and into the seats located to the left of the foul pole. Although Contreras went into a home run trot, the ball was ruled foul. A replay review upheld it.

Once on first base, Contreras advanced to second base on a wild pitch during Ivan Herrera’s at-bat. When Herrera’s ground ball to shortstop Josh Smith pulled third baseman Jung away from the third base bag, Contreras’ jump on contact allowed him to advance 90 feet for Arenado, who swatted the second pitch he saw from Corbin for a fly ball deep enough to score Contreras.

When he stepped to the plate with Winn standing on third base following his double and Brendan Donovan’s ground out to first base, Contreras pulled a 1-0 slider down to the left field corner for a ground-rule double.

Contreras’ double was his first extra-base hit since May 16, when he went 2 for 5 with two doubles against the Royals. Contreras went 5 or 35 in nine games since his two-double performance in Kansas City.