ARLINGTON -- The win column continues to elude the Cardinals, as the team lost its fifth consecutive game in a 6-4 defeat to the Rangers.

The Cardinals are now 12 games below .500 for the second time this season. It is just the second time overall that the team has fallen so far below .500 in franchise history. Remarkably, prior to this season, the franchise has not been 12-plus games below .500 since October 2, 1999, roughly four months after the team drafted future Hall of Famer Albert Pujols.

Eager to get back on the winning side, frustration was evident from the Cardinals after the game.

“It’s frustrating for sure,” said manager Oliver Marmol. “On nights that we hit, we give up more runs, and on nights that we don’t hit, our pitchers have done a nice job. It just hasn’t lined up in a way where it equals a win. So, we have to show up tomorrow and take our best shot again. But is it frustrating? Absolutely. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

Perhaps what makes the team’s recent skid so tough to process is the fact that struggling this consistently has been so uncommon for this franchise.

Entering this season, the Cardinals had the second-longest active streak of winning seasons at 15. While that streak may appear to be in jeopardy, there are still over 100 games left in the season.

The Cards still have time to turn things around and can hope to take some silver linings from tonight's offensive performance. Marmol has preached about the importance of his offense getting after the opposing starter early, emphasizing that the Cards have been allowing starters to settle into a groove far too often.

On Tuesday night, the Cards seemed to heed their skipper’s advice and got to Rangers starter Dane Dunning early.

Brendan Donovan kicked things off with a leadoff single to center field. A few at-bats later, Nolan Arenado launched a two-run home run 406 feet into the left-field seats. For Arenado, it was his 11th home run of the season, fifth-most among third basemen.

Arenado would not be the last Cardinal to homer off Dunning, though, as sluggers Willson Contreras and Jordan Walker also took him deep in the sixth.

Contreras, who has struggled mightily recently -- with only two hits in the 11 games leading up to Tuesday's matchup – smashed a solo home run to cut the Cardinals' deficit to three runs.

Contreras was nearly hit in the head with a pitch in his first at-bat, but got some revenge when he deposited the 2-0 fastball 404-feet into the left-field seats.

A few at-bats later, rookie phenom Jordan Walker , Major League Baseball's top prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, joined in on the action with a home run. Walker launched Dunning's fastball 430-feet -- the longest home run of his career thus far.

The Cards can only hope that the trio's home run prowess continues into the series finale Wednesday night, and that the pitching is good enough to help them secure their first victory of the month.