ST. LOUIS -- It has weighed on him for years now. Being the primary piece traded for Nolan Arenado has prompted Austin Gomber to try too hard, he said, eager to prove to a fan base frustrated by the transaction that he’s worthy of their cheers even if he may never be able to balance the ledgers.

As a player, he finally realized, that’s not his job. He didn’t trade himself, after all.

“The last couple months, in talking to people and in finding myself, it’s been easier to realize, ‘I’m never going to be Nolan Arenado, right?’” Gomber told MLB.com after pitching six scoreless innings against the team who traded him in the Rockies’ 1-0 win over the Cardinals on Sunday at Busch Stadium. “I could come here and throw a shutout every year, and it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to be a Hall of Famer. I understand that. It’s fine. So, just kind of removing those expectations for myself, that avenue of thinking, of trying to be like Nolan, replace Nolan or bring what he brought here, there was never going to be a way for that to work out.”

When he began this season with four losses after he’d gone 14-16 with a 5.06 ERA in his first two seasons with the Rockies, Gomber first opened up about the pressure he felt being the guy traded for a likely future Hall of Famer. The tall lefty was part of a package of young players that went to Colorado from St. Louis for Arenado -- he of the eight All-Star appearances, 10 Gold Gloves and 54 career bWAR. The teams made that swap the February before the 2021 season.

“I’m not trying to be [Arenado],” Gomber told reporters in April. “I’m just trying to be myself, but I feel like I’m having a hard time staying in that lane right now.”

None of the other young players in the deal has panned out so far, which could help explain why Gomber feels like his lane is under a microscope. Elehuris Montero, 24, has produced -0.7 WAR in his two big league seasons. His bat has yet to make up for fielding so shaky the Rockies have been forced to use him at first base or designated hitter rather than third base, his original position. Two of the Minor Leaguers in that deal -- Mateo Gil and Tony Locey -- now play in other organizations. The third, pitcher Jake Sommers, last played in the Minors in 2021.

Arenado has produced 13.9 bWAR in his three seasons in St. Louis. The players he was traded for have produced 0.8 bWAR combined. Those numbers say more about the decision of a previous Rockies front office than they do about Gomber.

“In my mind, this was significant for him in a lot of ways,” Rockies manager Bud Black said Sunday. “I don’t want to overplay it, but I know he feels good about this one.”

Gomber may have lifted or at least eased the weight of that pressure, but more important to the Rockies is that he gets on the kind of consistent run they haven’t seen from a starting pitcher since before Kyle Freeland’s struggles began in mid-June.

Since the start of July, Gomber is 3-1 with a 2.50 ERA and 19 strikeouts with just five walks. That’s the kind of effort the Rockies can begin to build around.

He wasn’t the only member of the Rockies to finally remove a Gateway Arch-sized monkey from his back. Sunday’s win combined with Friday’s gave the Rockies their first series win in St. Louis since June of 2009. The 1-0 game was the fifth time the Rockies held the Cardinals scoreless in 235 meetings.

“We have a lot of young guys who are unaware of the past,” Black said. “Like a lot of young players these days, their sense of history is maybe not like a lot of us. They’re focused on the future and the present, but it’s good for this group of players out there.”

Black spent part of his weekend chatting about his memories of the 1985 World Series. He pitched in two of the games vs. the Cardinals, including starting Game 4. On Sunday, his current team took a page out of his era’s playbook when catcher Austin Wynns opted to sacrifice bunt after Brenton Doyle’s leadoff double in the third inning. He got it down, Ezequiel Tovar lined a sacrifice fly to left and, voilá, that was the only run of the game.

Black appreciates Wynns’ throwback mentality.

“I mean, Austin can play in 2023. He could have played a generation ago. He could have played in the early 1900s. He’s that type of player,” Black said. “I think he’s a traditional, old-school catcher.”