Mike Leake has won just once in his last ten starts and last night’s outing went two innings, his shortest since 2013 when he couldn’t finish the second inning…that too was a start against the Mets.  Wednesday night,  Leake was charged with four runs, but left after being down 7-0.  Cardinals lost to the Mets 7-3.

The Mets sent eight batters to the plate in the first inning and put together three straight RBI hits with two outs, including a double from Lucas Duda who is now 7-for-9 in his career against Leake.

Leake on being owned by that Duda.

The Mets added four more runs off of Leake in the second, only one of them earned. Third baseman Jedd Gyorko’s throw sailed into right field on what could have been a double-play grounder, but by that time the game was out of hand.

St. Louis battled back and made things interesting in the 8th, scoring twice and even led to a save opportunity for a “leaky” Mets bullpen, but the Cardinals were cooled off and fell into fourth place in the Central.

The Pirates beat the Brewers in 10 innings to leap frog the Cards for third.  St. Louis plays the Mets starting at 11:10 our time on Thursday and then head to Chicago to face the Cubs who have won six straight to pull to within 1 ½ games of Milwaukee.