The sixth inning flipped it. Nathan Church's single ended the perfect game, Masyn Winn followed with a hit of his own, and a hard-hit grounder off the bat of Ivan Herrera got past shortstop Colson Montgomery for an error that loaded the bases instead of ending the inning. Alec Burleson made Chicago pay with a bases-clearing double down the right-field line, and all three runs went in the books as unearned — the difference in the game traced straight back to the glove, not the arm.
Sandlin still finished with a line that read better than the box score's final digit — 5.2 innings, three runs, none of them earned, five strikeouts, no walks, on just 70 pitches. Chicago's offense never made St. Louis pay for the openings it got, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranding a leadoff triple in the sixth that could have answered right back.
George Soriano had to work for his fourth save, putting the tying run aboard on a leadoff single and a walk before getting Montgomery to fly out with the bases loaded to end it — a fitting final image, the shortstop whose error opened the door getting one last shot to close it back up and coming up short.
Chicago still salvaged one of three in the set, but the loss trims what had been a half-game cushion in the AL Central down to the same half game over Cleveland, just with less room to give. For St. Louis, a rotation game that looked unremarkable on paper turned into six shutout innings from McGreevy and a series win that keeps the Cardinals playing spoiler with real traction.