TORONTO -- Besides the obvious, something else was amiss.

Forced to travel to Toronto without two of their most important contributors in Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, the depleted Cardinals couldn’t hold off a scorching-hot Blue Jays lineup on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre.

But the lack of star power didn’t seem to be the main issue.

“We’ve got to pitch better,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol after his team’s 10-3 loss to the Blue Jays.

As thin as St. Louis' lineup may have looked on paper, it held its own against Toronto's arms. But a combination of walks and loud contact by the Cardinals' pitching staff proved to be their undoing in the opener of the two-game series.

The final score could have looked a lot different had it not been for a five-run sixth inning that included a grand slam allowed by reliever Junior Fernández. In all, four Cardinals pitchers combined to allow 14 hits, four walks and three home runs, more than enough to get buried by a team which has yet to lose after the All-Star break.

“It’s the reality of this entire game, honestly,” said Marmol. “ ... When you pitch to contact, you’re going to have days like today.”

Pitching to contact and inducing ground balls has worked more often than not for Andre Pallante in his young career. The right-hander entered the bottom of the first with a 1-0 lead thanks to a Dylan Carlson solo shot that gave St. Louis some much-needed offensive hope and showed that there was still life at the top of the lineup despite some key absences.

But that early lead quickly disappeared when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. took Pallante deep for a two-run shot and Matt Chapman drove in one more before Pallante got Santiago Espinal -- Toronto's No. 8 batter -- to ground out to end the first inning.

“It’s kind of been a theme through my last couple of outings,” said Pallante. “I’m going to go back, watch the last four games, where I’ve given up runs in the first then made improvements throughout the game and try to learn what I’m doing differently, then do that in the first inning [too].”

Similarly to those past few outings, Pallante recovered nicely after Tuesday’s first inning, shutting out the Blue Jays for the next three frames as the Cardinals strung together a series of singles off Toronto starter José Berríos to tie things up at 3-3.

Albert Pujols -- who received a heartwarming standing ovation from the 39,756 fans at Rogers Centre -- drove in the tying run in the third after his chain broke off, and for a while it seemed like the game would stay close until the end.

“It was good to come back and tie it, and Pallante did a good job of keeping it there,” said Marmol. “The swings are looking closer and closer to what we’re looking for.”

And that was without Arenado and Goldschmidt, or Yadier Molina and Harrison Bader. But the offensive bright spots were largely undone by the pitching issues, which are bound to get even worse as the Cardinals face at least four to six weeks without Steven Matz -- with the possibility of being without their prized starter for the rest of the year.

Those question marks became even more intense when George Springer crushed the sixth-inning grand slam that blew the game wide open, swiftly putting out whatever firepower the undermanned Cardinals lineup sparked in the opening frames.

“It’s baseball. Stuff happens,” Pallante said. “You can throw the exact same stuff in one game or another game. In one game, you can go perfect, and in the other, you give up 100 runs.”

The Cardinals have been on the wrong side of that equation for most of their contests since the All-Star break. St. Louis (51-47) sits three games back of the Brewers (54-44) for the top spot in the NL Central instead occupying the third and final Wild Card position after two straight losses and a 1-3 record since the break.

As the urgency increases and the schedule gets tougher, any contribution is appreciated. Getting all the moving parts to click at the same time, however, may prove a bit more difficult.