SAN FRANCISCO -- One pitch, one that closer Ryan Helsley described as easily his worst pitch of the night, proved to be the difference between the Cardinals finally savoring a much-needed, come-from-behind victory and instead being forced to experience the agony of their cruelest defeat of the season.

A strike away from a victory the Cardinals greatly needed, Helsley left a spinning slider in the middle of the plate and rookie catcher Blake Sabol smoked a 108.2 mph drive that cleared the fence in straightaway center field to give the Cardinals a dramatic 5-4 loss at chilly Oracle Park.

A batter earlier, Helsley used a sequence of a 101.1 mph fastball and an 82.4 mph curveball to strike out Brandon Crawford and draw the Cardinals within one out of a victory made possible by a three-run rally in the eighth inning. However, against Sabol, Helsley threw sliders on his final three pitches, and the third one was hit 428 feet to set off a wild celebration for a Giants team that is suddenly surging with four straight victories.

For the Cardinals, there was more dejection.

“Just a bad location; felt good all night, and I made one bad pitch, and I ended up paying the price for it,” said Helsley, an All-Star and an All-MLB Second-Team performer in 2022. “Any time you are out there, you want to do well and help the team win. Obviously, we’re on a skid right now and we’re trying to go about it one day at a time and go from here.”

Helsley admitted that his emotions were jarred by giving up the first walk-off home run of his MLB career. The closer had a career year in 2022, going 9-1 with a 1.25 ERA in 54 games. He did surrender a go-ahead home run to Marlins slugger Avisaíl García last season at Busch Stadium, but that wasn’t a walk-off blast where the other team celebrated as Helsley had to trudge off.

After surrendering three runs in Tuesday’s ninth, Helsley’s record stood at 0-2 with as many blown saves (three) as saves (three).

“It’s tough because that’s the first time I’ve experienced that,” Helsley said. “It’s definitely not a good feeling, so it’s motivation to try and never be there again. If I’m doing this long enough, it probably won’t be the last time -- not that I want to be giving up leads. Hopefully next time out, I can be better.”

What made Tuesday’s collapse so much more painful was that the Cardinals finally strung together solid starting pitching with timely hitting. Jake Woodford gave the Cardinals a strong start, allowing just two earned runs on five hits and one walk with four strikeouts over 5 1/3 innings. Woodford stayed stubbornly down in the zone and got eight groundouts from the Giants.

Woodford got defensive help from outfielders Lars Nootbaar and Alec Burleson, who made stellar plays at the wall. Nootbaar threw out Michael Conforto from the warning track on a hard-hit ball in the fifth, while Burleson leaped in front of the wall and brought in a near home run for an out in the sixth.

A Cardinals offense that was shut out on Monday came alive in the eighth. Dylan Carlson led off the inning with his second hit of the night and Paul DeJong and Tyler O’Neill followed with pinch-hit knocks. O’Neill’s drive to right field hopped off the wall and tied the game at 2.

Then, Paul Goldschmidt hit his second hardest-hit ball of the season -- a 110.2 mph rocket off Crawford’s glove to plate two runs that put the Redbirds up, 4-2.

Closing out the game would have meant a Cardinals victory for just the third time in the past eight games. But it wasn’t to be because of Helsley’s spinning slider in the middle of the plate.        

“That was a well-played game, but at the end of the day, we’re going through a tough one,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “When you suffer like this, it creates perseverance and character. And I’ll tell you this right now, that will serve us well down the road. This group is not going to cave. I don’t care what people think. This will serve us extremely well when we get into September, I’ll tell you that.”  

Rather than trying to forget the jarring loss, Helsley said he wants to keep it in the front of his mind and learn from it. Because the Cardinals have trailed so often in recent weeks, Helsley’s usage has been far more sporadic. He refused to use that as an excuse.

“You can’t grow if you aren’t learning from your mistakes,” he said. “I’ll take a look at it, see what I can do better and try to grow from it.”