ST. LOUIS -- Even though he struck out the side in the fourth inning, retired the Reds on just five pitches in the next frame and was perfect through five innings, Sonny Gray’s best work of Thursday just might have come during a sticky sixth inning.

Facing a bases-loaded situation after losing his perfect game bid in the sixth, Gray responded by striking out Tyler Stephenson before getting TJ Friedl to ground out softly on his 34th pitch of the inning. That effort from Gray, and home runs from rookie Masyn Winn and Brendan Donovan, powered the Cardinals to a 6-1 series-clinching win over the Reds in the final meeting of the season between the two NL Central rivals.

Gray (13-9) won his third straight start and beat the Reds for the first time in his career. Gray, who started his career in Oakland and pitched for the Reds from 2019-21, has now beaten every MLB team except Arizona and Colorado.

The 34-year-old right-hander clearly had his good stuff early in the game, getting five swings-and-misses on the first eight sweepers he threw. Gray struck out seven of the first 12 batters that he faced, including a fourth-inning performance in which he fanned the top three hitters in the lineup -- all looking. The fifth inning was even better when he needed just five pitches to retire the Reds in order.

But Gray came unglued in the sixth inning, having to work around trouble to keep the game tied. Jake Fraley broke up the perfect game with a hard-hit single through the right side to lead off the frame before Gray walked Santiago Espinal on four pitches. Jonathan India tied the game with an RBI single, but Gray buckled down to end his outing with six innings of one-run ball. He allowed just two hits and walked two on 91 pitches (56 strikes).

Offensively, Winn hit his 13th home run of the season in the third inning and scored the go-ahead run in the sixth on Lars Nootbaar’s sacrifice fly. Thomas Saggese added on with his first MLB hit in the seventh, and first RBI in the eighth, while Donovan clobbered a pinch-hit two-run home run in the seventh. It was Donovan’s 12 home run, which set a career high, and was the first pinch-hit homer of his career.