ST. LOUIS -- Earlier this week, the Cardinals made it through five games in three days at Wrigley Field without making an error. They’ve made four in two nights in their return to Busch Stadium.

Two on the same play in the sixth inning of Friday night’s 4-2 loss to the Reds proved costly.

Reliever Génesis Cabrera (1-1) should have gotten out of the inning just fine after getting a groundout and striking out Jesse Winker swinging on a 96-mph fastball. But Harrison Bader’s catching error at the wall and shortstop Tommy Edman’s catching error on the relay -- both on Eugenio Suárez’s fly ball to deep center field -- put Suárez on third base.

• Box score

“It was a little funky,” Bader said. “Definitely should have caught it, there’s no doubt. Just was bearing down on the wall ... didn’t exactly know where I was at until the last glance. And just hit my [glove’s] heel. Definitely a play I need to make, no doubt about it.”

Added manager Mike Shildt, “You can’t get on Harrison for not making every single absolute play, because this guy has been an elite defender in the league and has been a big part of our defense the last couple years. He didn’t make a play I’m sure he would expect to make, but the other part is, we’ve got to cover it. We weren’t able to cover it.”

The game unraveled shortly after.

Cabrera walked left-handed hitter Mike Moustakes and hit pinch-hitter Phillip Ervin to load the baes. At 30 pitches, Cabrera’s night was done after one inning of relief. Shildt then brought in lefty Tyler Webb to face pinch-hitter (and right-hander) Matt Davidson.

Davidson took one fastball up for a ball and one fastball in for a ball before crushing the third fastball -- this one down the middle -- 449 feet with an exit velocity of 113.1 mph, according to Statcast. The ball bounced on the left-center-field concourse and over the gate. It was Davidson’s second career grand slam and first as a pinch-hitter.

In one swing, Davidson erased the shutout that starter Dakota Hudson piloted into the fifth inning and gave the lead to the Reds. Hudson gave up just one hit and struck out six in 4 2/3 innings. He exited after 74 pitches -- a total Shildt felt was enough for a pitcher who had missed almost three weeks because of the Cardinals’ quarantines.

Across his last two appearances, Webb has allowed a three-run homer and a grand slam. Not yet one week into their return to the field after a 17-day layoff, the Cardinals are working with limited availability with some of their relievers, and that’s what greeted them in the sixth inning Thursday, Shildt said. They could have extended Cabrera one more batter, but it would have been the second time he’s gone more than an inning and with a season-high pitch count.

“We pitched what we had available tonight,” Shildt said. “I don’t mind the at-bat with Cabrera, his stuff’s good. But this guy has been going day on, day off, pitch, day off. It’s time for him to get a blow once he couldn’t quite find it again. We went with Webby.”

• Notes: Elledge's first win; Seijas outrighted

It didn’t help that the Cardinals loaded the bases twice in the third inning and came away with just one run. Three of the four runners who reached base did so by walk or hit batter, and the one hit of the inning was Kolten Wong’s bunt single against the shift. In another bases-loaded situation in the fifth inning, Brad Miller hit into a fielder’s choice to score a run before Tyler O’Neill popped out.

“You’d like to get the big hit as they say and bust it open a little bit, but that guy’s pitching, too,” Shildt said. “They made some pitches, made some plays. Clearly, we’d like to have a little bit more, but I felt like the at-bats were there. Just sometimes you can’t bring them home.”

There were more runs in the game (six) than there were hits (five); the Cardinals allowed two of those hits. Since 1906, the Cardinals have never had a game in which they allowed four or more runs on two hits or fewer.

“It’s a tough game,” Bader said. “We’re not going to do it every time. Everybody in the lineup wants to get it done and sometimes it just doesn’t shake out that way. You can’t let these things override what we got going on here. It’s still very early in our season, even though we’re behind the number of games played. This is our 15th game. We’ve got some room. We’re creating our foundation.”