ST. LOUIS -- Twenty-four hours before his first August start, the American League’s Pitcher of the Month for July sounded like a man who has learned that one month’s success doesn’t guarantee the next’s.

“Month to month, I always try to perform better for myself or beat my own expectations,” Taj Bradley said. “Awards like this are cool to come by, but I always think in my head there’s more ahead.”

It's a night like Wednesday that demonstrates the humbling nature of the sport.

Bradley couldn’t muster the nasty split-finger pitch that had helped him pile up strikeouts the previous calendar month. Even when he felt it was coming around, he struggled to get in counts where he could throw it. The upshot was his worst start since June 1 in the Rays’ 5-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Wednesday evening.

After a month in which three of his five starts were scoreless and he struck out 31 batters in 31 innings, Bradley didn’t make it out of the fifth inning against St. Louis.

“Any time you get behind in the count, it’s tough,” catcher Alex Jackson said. “You’re trying to make perfect pitches and they’re able to eliminate stuff. Even without his best stuff, he was still competing out there and able to get through it.”

The way the Rays’ lineup has sputtered much of this season, particularly in the clutch, pitching for this team can be an unforgiving task.

In the first two games of this series, the Rays have gotten one hit in 23 at-bats with runners in scoring position. Poor clutch hitting is turning into a pattern for a Tampa Bay team that ranks 28th in runs scored in MLB. While taking two of three games in Houston, they had just three hits with 20 runners in scoring position.

“I can tell you that’s not a good stat,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “I would agree, we’ve got to be better with runners in scoring position, find a way to get that hit.”

A couple of impressive trends unraveled for Bradley on Wednesday night. He had been among MLB’s best road pitchers the past couple months, going 2-0 with a 1.08 ERA in his last four road starts. And he came into Wednesday riding a streak of seven straight starts in which he had allowed five hits or fewer while going at least five innings.

The Cardinals took a 3-1 lead in the third inning, with Alec Burleson and Wilson Conteras leading off with singles and Nolan Arenado cracking a two-run double into the left-field corner. The Arenado hit was the Cardinals’ sixth of the game at that point, with one out in the third inning. St. Louis’s lead went to 5-1 after Burleson’s double into the right-field corner drove in two more runs the following inning.

Bradley’s three strikeouts were tied for his lowest total of the season and Wednesday was Bradley’s second-shortest outing this season, marking only the second time he has failed to get through five innings, as the Cardinals managed nine hits and three walks in 4 2/3 innings against him.

The Rays’ recent tendency to strike out frequently scuttled a good scoring opportunity in the second inning. After the first two batters reached base, Jose Siri and José Caballero both struck out swinging before Curtis Mead hit a wickedly spinning grounder that went from fair to foul to fair again for the final out.

More futility in the clutch stung them in the sixth inning, when they loaded the bases with nobody out against Tampa Bay area native Ryan Fernandez. They scored one run on Caballero’s deep sacrifice fly, but even after both other baserunners tagged and advanced, they never budged from there. Curtis Mead hit a weak pop-up to first and pinch-hitter Ben Rortvedt lined out to left.

“We’re sitting bases loaded with no outs, you’ve got to get a little greedier than getting one run,” Cash said.

Siri’s center-field prowess saved the Rays from falling into a deeper hole in the early innings. He ran 99 feet to take a potential double away from Burleson in the first inning, snaring a slicing fly ball on the run near the left-center field wall. And, he ran even farther to catch Masyn Winn’s popup in shallow center field to end the second inning. Siri slid to make the catch at the last second after sprinting 129 feet straight in.

Siri ranks in the 98th percentile of MLB for range, with 11 Outs Above Average.

“It’s an excellent feeling. I had to run plenty since the play was out in left-center field,” Siri said through team interpreter Manny Navarro. “But my legs felt good.”