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Arenado was a late scratch from the Saturday’s lineup due to a impingement in his right shoulder. He first felt the pain during Friday’s game, but the team and third baseman wanted to see how it recovered between games.

Arenado tested it out on the field and in the cage before determining the resistance and discomfort in the shoulder. He was removed from the lineup shortly before game time.

The Cardinals’ initially described him as day to day with the injury, and manager Oliver Marmol said after the 8-6 victory that Arenado would have to be reevaluated Sunday for the team to have a clearer sense of his return. The Cardinals have seven games remaining before the All-Star break.

“It didn’t feel right to go,� Marmol said of Saturday’s choice.

In Arenado’s place, Thomas Saggese played third base and batted fifth. In his first at-bat, Saggese had a two-RBI single, and his bloop single in the eighth was part of the Cardinals’ decisive five-run comeback.

Arenado missed the final two games of the Cardinals’ series in Pittsburgh due to a finger he sprained at the start of the road trip in Cleveland. He lined a ball out to second base in Friday night’s loss to the Cubs and finished 0 for 3. Before injuring his finger, Arenado had been 5 for 12 with two RBIs and two doubles in the Cardinals’ trip-opening sweep of the Guardians.

Pages was perplexed, too

One of the pitches that prompted a gambling investigation from Major League Baseball on Cleveland starter Luis Ortiz also confused the batter, Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages.

Pages was at the plate for one of the two pitches flagged for sportsbooks by a betting-integrity watchdog for suspicious wagering. Major League Baseball began its investigation this past week and placed Ortiz on paid leave. There are sportsbooks that take best on first pitches.

The pitch — the first pitch of the Cardinals’ top of the third inning June 27 at Progressive Field — went way wide.

So wide that Pages looked to the scoreboard for what kind of pitch it was.

“I was just confused,� Pages said. “Obviously, he spiked it. It wasn’t competitive. So I was confused. Once I saw what the pitch was, I figured he yanked a slider and I didn’t think anything of it.�

It did put Ortiz in a bind that Pages’ capitalized on. The right-hander fell behind with another ball that followed the slider. Pages then jumped Ortiz’s 2-0, 95.8-mph sinker for a solo home run.

Backing his boyhood pal

For the third consecutive start by his longtime friend, fellow Phoenix kid, and boyhood teammate Matthew Liberatore, Nolan Gorman backed the left-handed pitcher with a home run.

Gorman homered against the Cubs in Liberatore’s game against them on June 23, and he also had a homer this past week during Liberatore’s start in Cleveland. In fourth inning Saturday, with the Cardinals clinging to a 2-1 lead, Gorman drilled an breaking ball from reliever Chris Flexen for a solo homer into the Wrigley Field bleachers. The ball carried an estimated 420 feet to give the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

The homer was Gorman’s eighth of the season and seventh in the past month.

“It’s definitely trending that way,� Liberatore said of the convergence of his starts and Gorman’s homers. “I think this is the best he’s looked in quite a while, and I couldn’t be more happy for him. It’s super-nice to have him in the lineup doing what he’s doing.�

Pallante debuts new pitch

It was a pitch that skipped to the backstop and would normally be a forgettable one in the fourth inning of a seven-inning, one-hit start by Andre Pallante.

Except, it was also a first for Pallante.

This past Tuesday at PNC Park, with an advantage count, Pallante attempted a sweeping slider Tuesday night. He threw to a Pirate he identified before the game as possibly someone to try the pitch against, if the situation came up. It’s a breaking pitch he’s been working to give him a “chase� pitch – something that might invite more swings and misses and ultimately more strikeouts. He’s thrown six or sven of them in every bullpen session with fellow starters Sonny Gray and Erick Fedde looking on and providing tips from their sweepers. After a month of work in the lab he wanted to take it for a test drive in a game. But just once.

“First step, throw one in the game and see how it works,� Pallante said. “Then, throw a couple of more in a game and really now dedicate my bullpen work to get to a point where I can have confidence in it.�

Pallante struck out three in his seven scoreless innings of Tuesday’s 1-0 loss. Pallante used it on a 1-2 count against Nick Gonzales with two outs and the bases empty in the fourth inning. He just yanked it so it could be ignored as a breaking at 83 mph and well wide of the strike zone.

He then came back to get a groundout, one of 13 he collected in the game.

“Definitely the most unpredictable I’ve been in my career,� Pallante said of the outing. “I still think there’s room for me to grow.�