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A disastrous inning for Erick Fedde merged with the lineup’s ineffective evening against a lefty to swamp the Cardinals in a 7-0 loss to the Pirates at PNC Park. The Cardinals have only lost four of their past 14 games, but all four losses have been in games started by a left-handed opponent. Fedde, meanwhile, has allowed seven earned runs in consecutive games just ahead of what is scheduled to be a start for him at Wrigley Field against the division-leading Cubs.

“Obviously, these last two are about as bad as it gets,� Fedde said.

He paused.

“I wish I has answers for you,� he said. “I really do.�

If answers bloom from reasons, the Cardinals at least have a place to start.

Pirates lefty Andrew Heaney took a no-hitter into the sixth inning and held the Cardinals scoreless for his 6 2/3 innings. He walked the first batter he faced — Brendan Donovan — and then retired 15 consecutive Cardinals and faced the minimum through 5 2/3 innings. His teammates pounced on Fedde to create a seven-run lead by the end of the fifth inning before Heaney had allowed a hit.

The Cardinals have mustered a grand total of four runs against left-handed starters in the past five games started by a lefty, or 30 2/3 innings. Three of those runs came on Nolan Gorman’s homer Sunday in Cleveland off lefty Logan Allen. All four of the losses to lefties have corresponded with Lars Nootbaar’s absence from either the lineup or the leadoff spot and right-handed hitters Ivan Herrera and Jordan Walker being on the injured list. In Nootbaar’s place, Donovan has led off, faced the lefty starter the most, and in the five games that feature lefty starters, he’s 0 for 19.

“We have to be able to combat it differently,� manager Oliver Marmol said late Monday night in his office at PNC Park. “Lefties have gotten us. It’s no secret. We look forward to the next one.�

The Pirates have two right-hander starters — their best two right-handed pitchers, Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller — scheduled to start the remaining games of the series.

Less certain is when the Cardinals turn to Fedde next.

Their right-hander has struggled in his previous two starts, and his ERA has bloated from 3.54 to 4.56 in the span of 8 2/3 innings.

Fedde (3-8) allowed a leadoff homer on his second pitch of the game Monday. If cleanup hitter Nick Gonzales tripled in the first pitch of his first-inning at-bat, Fedde would have allowed a cycle to the Pirates in the span of five pitches. Instead, Gonzales ripped a liner back at the right-hander that Fedde caught to turn into a lottery-ticket double play. Fedde matched Heaney (4-7) zero for zero the next three innings until the fifth came apart on him.

“Unfortunately the fifth inning kind of unraveled,� Fedde said. “It kind of feels like last start, where it happened really quick again. I’ve got to be a better professional in slowing that down and not allowing things to get out of hand quickly.�

That can happen when a go-to pitch is misbehaving.

And it can get even worse if the next-best pitch is also acting up.

At his best, Fedde is cruising through quick outs with meek contact, a sharp cutter, and floating fly balls. At times this season, the right-hander has admitted to “leaning� hard into his cutter at a time when the cutter is also less effective. A high-risk, high-reward pitch that can buzz saw in on opponents’ hands, the cutter finds barrels when it doesn’t have that same bite. The other fastball Fedde relies on — a sinker — isn’t as effective if it dips just slightly less than usual.

The home run Spencer Horwitz launched on the second pitch of the game came on a sinker. Horwitz’s two-run double that ignited the six-run fifth inning came on a cutter.

“Maybe they haven’t been quite as sharp lately,� Fedde said. “It feels a lot of the first-pitch swings I’m getting are hits rather than the quick outs you talk about. It’s one of those things where it’s not as late, late movement, and that’s causing better swings. I’ve got to get back to those quick outs and put some zeroes on the board.�

The metrics back what Fedde’s feeling.

This season, Fedde is throwing the cutter slightly less and the sinker slightly more, but the sinker is less effective as a swing-and-miss pitch. In 2024, which Fedde split between the Cardinals and White Sox, his sinker got a 20.2% whiff rate. This season, that’s plummeted to 9.9%. According to Statcast data, Fedde’s sinker is running more horizontally, and his cutter has a horizontal break 2 inches shorter than it did last season. That’s the difference between barrel and meek hit.

“It makes it more difficult,� Marmol said.

The manager said there is some “low-hanging fruit� that he and pitching coach Dusty Blake discussed late Monday to give Fedde some direction for improvement.

At Fedde’s locker, the Post-Dispatch asked the right-hander if he had any physical limitations, anything that might be limiting his delivery or arm in creating the familiar movement.

“I’m good enough to pitch right now,� Fedde said. “I think at this point, everyone is dealing with something. I’m good enough to go out there and pitch right now. So I’m not going to make any excuses about anything.�

The fifth inning began innocently enough against Fedde. A leadoff single by the No. 8 hitter was followed by a bunt single by No. 9 hitter Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The Pirates came into Monday’s game rolling from a weekend sweep of the New York Mets, when they outscored the visitors, 30 to 4, and there was definitely some confidence in the Bucs lineup — either because of their success over the weekend or their comfort against Fedde. Horwitz’s two-run double came on a fly ball to left when Donovan took a step in only to chase a ball deep over his head.

In the inning, the Pirates would bruise Fedde with seven hits, six runs and a total of eight base runners. The Cardinals elected to walk Oneil Cruz with first base empty to load them for No. 6 hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes. The choice backfired when Hayes roped a two-run single to center.

The pitch he drove?

A cutter.

“Maybe I’m being predictable,� Fedde said. “It just feels like looking back there are some decent pitches that are being hit, and to me that usually means that my stuff is not sharp. It’s not late-moving. The difference between a ball being 100 mph vs. 80 mph and an easy out — it’s that lateness of staying off the barrel. To me, it’s probably something that I like to think it’s the lateness of my pitches isn’t there right now.�

All of this leaves the Cardinals with choices to make.

Nootbaar, who is dealing with soreness along the left side of his ribcage, felt comfortable after taking batting practice Monday evening and could return to the lineup as early as Tuesday. Less clear is whether he’d vault back to leadoff. Walker is expected back when the Cardinals travel to Wrigley for a three-day, holiday weekend visit with their archrivals. Fedde would be on turn to start at Wrigley for ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,� pending the Cardinals using their off-day Thursday to adjust the rotation in some way.

Late Monday, the manager described the conversation in the dugout as hitters discussed ways to adjust to Heaney the next time they face the lefty.

In the wake of being capsized Monday, the same applies beyond the offense.

“If you’re going to lose like this,� Marmol said, “you better learn from it.�