Apr. 19—There’s no shortage of areas to point fingers at as far as where things went wrong in Tuesday night’s 8-7 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the second game of their three-game set in front of an announced crowd of 36,028 at Busch Stadium.

Cardinals starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery fell victim to a six-run fourth inning that included some pitches that were hit hard (three with exit velocities of 103 mph or greater), some defensive plays that weren’t made behind him and some incredibly bad luck — such as when a bounced curveball gets hit for a two-run double by Nick Ahmed.

The three-run ninth-inning came up short despite having the tying run at the plate with one out and on base with two outs. Yet Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol still found a way to come out of the night with a firm grasp on a few silver linings.

“I thought our ‘pen did a really nice job. I thought our offense responded well,” Marmol said. “It’s good to see — we talked about it earlier today — (Willson) Contreras starting to get in a pretty nice rhythm of driving the baseball. You take a lot of positives out of that. Obviously, you come up short and you want to win that game. But outside of that fourth inning, pretty good.”

Contreras went 2 for 5 with two home runs and three RBIs. He joined Ted Simmons and Yadier Molina as the only Cardinals catchers with multi-homer games while batting in the cleanup spot.

Contreras’ offensive rejuvenation of late certainly qualified as an encouraging development as did righthanded reliever Jordan Hicks’ outing.

Contreras’ surge had been building over several days. Contreras had snapped an 0-for-22 stretch with an RBI single on Friday night. He’d had a total of four hits in his previous two games, including three doubles, leading into Tuesday.

“I feel more on time,” Contreras said of his swing. “I’m giving myself time to let the ball travel a little bit more. I don’t feel rushed at all. That’s one of the adjustments that I’ve made so far this year, being early. My load has to be soft and slow and just trusting my hands, letting my hands work.”

Hicks’ performance has been far more unpredictable of late.

He pitched a scoreless ninth inning on Tuesday night, which set the stage for the Cardinals (7-11) to mount their ninth-inning rally. Hicks struck out three batters, showed off a fastball that reached 102 mph and gave up just one hit (a single).

This came in Hicks’ first outing since he gave up three runs, including the ghost runner in extra innings, on three hits in the decisive stretch of a 6-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 10 innings on Saturday.

In the aftermath of Saturday’s outing, Marmol said Hicks would have to work through his struggles in lower leverage situations, essentially a demotion to a lesser role.

“There was some fine-tuning and intent-wise, mechanical things,” Hicks said of the adjustments he’s worked to make. “I just really had to remind myself just who I am and bringing that confidence out there again.”

Hicks had posted a 12.71 ERA in seven appearances prior to Tuesday night.

In Saturday’s game, he gave up a two-run home run to Andrew McCutchen to start the outing in an at-bat where he didn’t throw one fastball and relied almost exclusively on his slider (six times) with one splitter mixed into the sequence.

Hicks hadn’t spoken to reporters since that outing. When asked about that sequence Tuesday night, he said he preferred to “put it in the past,” but also said that pitch selection “wasn’t probably the best idea.”

Hicks, 26, has reached five years of major-league service time, which means he’d have to consent to being sent down to the minor leagues.

He declined to say whether or not going to the minors had been brought up in conversations with the Cardinals coaching staff or front office, saying, “I’d just like to keep those conversations between me and them and just move on.”

In Hicks’ case, moving on also meant returning to a previous mindset.

He’d shown flashes of potential dominance at times earlier in his career, but he acknowledged that he hadn’t had the same approach of late that had brought him success in the past.

“I just feel like I wasn’t sharp and I wasn’t giving it everything,” Hicks said. “Not that I wasn’t here on the day to day and putting in my work. It’s more like the intent and effort level. I feel like that was stepped up today. I just had a few conversations with a couple people, and I like the results.”

Hicks declined to discuss the specific mechanical adjustments he’d made, but said multiple times he feels confident that he’s “in a good place.”

He described part of his changes as returning to how he used to do things such as the intensity in the way he approached long toss and his pregame work.

As far as what caused him to stray from that previous approach, Hicks didn’t have a definitive answer. He dealt with injury for the first time last season, which may have contributed.

“That’s a good question because it could be a lot of

(See CARDINALS, Page 8) things,” Hicks said. “Coming back from injury, you kind of forget what that intent level was. Then I was just speaking with my dad and I had a thought, ‘I used to chuck that (crap) during long toss and coming in from long toss.’

“Just getting back to what I know and what was working in the past. Even though it might be a couple years ago, it still feels like that’s the path forward.”

Tuesday night seemed like a step in the right direction for Hicks.

“I think it’s the best that I’ve seen him throwing the baseball,” a wide-eyed Contreras said of Hicks. “It wasn’t like that in spring training, to be honest. His sinker tonight was something else. His slider was a little more consistent. That’s what we need from him.

“It’s not about putting pressure on somebody, but if he’s like that he’s going to help the team way more.”