Jun. 2—LOS ANGELES — If there was any question whether Tyler O’Neill would hesitate to steal a base after fracturing a finger the last time he tried it or that the Cardinals outfielder might shorten his stride after a groin injury weeks ago, the Dodgers now have those answers. It’s how they lost.

Two innings after misplacing the lead, the Cardinals swiped it back when O’Neill broke for second and successfully stole the base to get into scoring position. He has the chewed up, bloodied forearm to prove it. O’Neill’s rash move became the goahead run on Edmundo Sosa’s RBI single that sent the Cardinals to a 3-2 victory against LA deep into the night Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. Sosa showed bunt before pulling back to sting the single to left field that contributed to an entertaining game illuminated by timeless elements of baseball and decided by the footspeed of a left fielder.

O’Neill assured one run was enough when, with two outs in the ninth, he blitzed to the wall in left-field to leap and rob an extra-base hit and likely game-winner from Mookie Betts.

The run his speed took in the top of the inning, O’Neill took away to end the game.

“Those are both go get ‘em plays,” O’Neill said. “Full throttle into the game. That play was just in go-get-it mode. All or nothing. That’s what we live for — making those catches in the game.”

The rally and the catch was too late to reward starter John Gant for his six scoreless innings but came just in time for closer Alex Reyes to secure his 16th save.

But not before another walk set the stage for that predictable Hollywood ending.

Reyes walked pinch-hitter Yoshi Tsutsugo with two outs in the ninth to bring former MVP Cody Bellinger into the scene. Bellinger had been a late-game pinch-hitter and remained in the game, batting ninth, to play center field. He got a swing as the potential winning run — and prolonged the drama. Bellinger’s single got the tying run in scoring position and winning run on base for another former MVP, Betts.

O’Neill’s speed had one more role to play.

The Cardinals’ outfielder dashed into the left-field corner to catch a long drive by Betts by leaping and jagging his foot into the wall. O’Neill’s catch was one of several defensive plays that robbed the defending World Series champs of potential rallies.

“We played defense like a World Series champion team,” Sosa said.

“Pitching, defense, timely hitting, right?” manager Mike Shildt said. “What a recipe, a winning recipe. ... Talk about speed being on display in the ninth. Total package in the ninth.”

That ninth feature three phases of O’Neill’s speed.

He opened the inning with a single roped to center at 107.5 mph. Only one other hit in the game left a bat as fast as O’Neill’s single. Sosa’s job was to move the runner over, but not before trying something else. Against power-sinker reliever Blake Treinen, Sosa showed bunt, got the fielders moving, and O’Neill bolted. With his fifth steal of the season in his pocket, O’Neill scored easy on Sosa’s single.

“My mindset for that atbat changed,” Sosa said. “I was like, ‘OK, it’s time to play small baseball. It’s time to move him over to third base.”

Or home. Home is good. In the same inning his error invited the Cardinals to add a run to their lead, Dodgers outfielder Matt Beaty took it away. In the top of the seventh, Beaty settled under a fly ball to left field. He missed the catch and then worsened the error by swatting the ball with the same glove it just dropped out of. That put pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter at second base.

His presence in the game turned out to mean more than his standing at second.

Carpenter’s at-bat brought an end to Gant’s night and a beginning to the bullpen’s influence on the game. The Cardinals’ relievers had nine outs to get and two runs as a head start. It set up for the Cardinals to go with their three surefire, late-inning options, culminating with closer Reyes.

The lead didn’t survive the seventh.

In his first start of the series and first start against the Cardinals as a member of the Dodgers, Albert Pujols drew a one-out walk from Giovanny Gallegos. The walk was the bullpen’s league-leading 124th of the season. Beaty, the Dodgers’ eighth hitter, came up with the high probability Bellinger would be pinch-hitting behind him. Gallegos challenged Beaty.

Beaty bat-flipped after his response.

His two-run homer into the right-field seats at Dodger Stadium knotted the game and erased the work Gant did to get the score there to the bullpen. Gallegos moved into a tie for the NL lead with his fifth blown save.

The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead for Gant in the first two innings. Both rallies centered around Tommy Edman and Dylan Carlson. In the first, Edman doubled and scored on Paul Goldschmidt’s double after Carlson’s single. In the second, Carlson followed Edman’s second hit of the game with an RBI single to score Jose Rondon. The rest of the innings and so much of the Cardinals’ lineup was otherwise littered with strikeouts. Through the first seven innings, the Cardinals faced five different LA pitchers and struck out a dozen times.

The crossroads of Gant’s start came in the sixth inning as he carried his scoreless streak through 79 pitches and into a third turn through the top of the order.

He got through the inning with help from his friends.

One leaping.

One sliding.

The Cardinals defense, which has been a steadying force for them over the past month, stole two outs for Gant to LA from turning two hits into a rally. Playing deeper against the lefthanded-hitting Max Muncy, Edman skied to snare a line drive for the second out of the inning. That kept Betts at first, which proved vital when Will Smith laced a groundrule double that onehopped into the left-field seats. Betts had to stop at third, Smith at second, and that brought Gavin Lux up. The infielder who hit two homers Monday flipped a line drive toward center that appeared to be just short enough to score two runs and level the game.

Carlson lunged and plucked the dropping liner just before it touched grass.

The catch turned Gant’s 95th and final pitch into an out.

“Just seeing those guys work is a beautiful thing,” said Gant, who touched 95 mph with his fastball. “What they do kind of allos us to go up there and throw with a little more confidence, just knowing that we have that elite defense behind us that’s going to make plays. Not maybe make plays. They’re going to make plays.”

The righthander became only the second starter on this road trip to throw at least six innings, and he claimed his second quality start on a night the Cardinals need some reassuring from the pitching staff. Earlier in the day the Cardinals learned opening day starter and 8-1 righthander Jack Flaherty would miss an extended period of time with an oblique strain. That compromise a rotation that is already down Miles Mikolas and has had difficult throughout the season of providing quality starts and innings for the team. Recent thin outings left the bullpen overexposed as it had to handle the leftovers.

Gant has contributed to their workload, but not with games that get messy or bloated, just with his busy innings and higher pitch counts.

The righthander with the Vulcan-grip changeup has made tiptoeing through traffic and defying the metrics an art this season. He is among the league-leaders in walks and walk rates and yet continues to sink his ERA ever lower.

It will be 1.60 going into his next start.

He escapes trouble by turning to the defense and sometimes counting on the fielders to turn two. In the first inning, Gant walked the second batter he faced, and then promptly started the double play that got him out of the inning. In the second, two singles got a potential rally in motion for the Dodgers, but it stalled with two consecutive groundouts ended the inning. A walk in the third was erased by double play, and on Gant bebopped into the fifth inning when Edman made the first of his remarkable grabs.

Quizzed before the game why he started Jose Rondon, an infielder, in right fielder instead of Edman, who has been the team’s starting right fielder at times this season, Shildt pivoted to point out Edman’s leading stats when it comes to defensive runs saved. He’s the leader on the team, and one of the leaders in the league at second base. He added to that by racing into shallow right field to snag a soft liner that ended the fifth inning.

In the innings leading up to the Dodgers’ rally, both dugouts seemed to take issue with home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt’s strike zone. Carlson hopped back after being called out on strikes to end the seventh inning. Dodgers’ No. 3 hitter Justin Turner slow-walked out of the box, away from the umpire, and toward the dugout, as if awaiting the “Incredible Hulk” theme to accompany him.

Wendelstedt at one point motioned to the LA dugout about their comments.

The strike zone favored the lower reaches, and the perhaps both sides had a case. From the bottom of the fourth inning through the end of the seventh, eight consecutive strikeouts were called looking. That included four on each side, and all three of the strikeouts Mitch White got in his one inning of work against the Cardinals. That helped White pitch around the error by Beaty to set up the rally keyed by Beaty.

The rest of the game for the Dodgers was just a blur.

A blur of O’Neill.

“We found a different way. You’ve got to find different ways to win games,” Shildt said. “We do our part to understand where the spots are, and the players — they’re the ones that execute it. Just kind of old-school, good baseball. Still works. Still plays. It allowed us to win a baseball game.”