Sonny Gray improves to 6-1 as Cardinals shut out Rangers

Willson Contreras drove in a run and scored one to back the solid pitching of Sonny Gray and two relievers as the St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Texas Rangers 2-0 on Saturday afternoon in the second contest of a three-game interleague series in Arlington, Texas.
The Cardinals managed just five hits, but that total was enough to beat Texas, which posted four hits but had only one runner reach third base.
St. Louis evened the series after getting shellacked 11-1 on Friday.
The Rangers were shut out for the eighth time this season one day after producing their second-highest run total of 2025.
Gray (6-1) went seven scoreless innings for St. Louis, scattering four hits and walking one while tying a season high with 10 strikeouts. Phil Maton relieved and worked around a walk in the eighth before Ryan Helsley retired the heart of the Rangers’ order in the ninth and struck out two to record his 13th save of the campaign.
Gray has won his past three decisions in a stretch of five starts without a loss.
Masyn Wynn had two hits — one of them a double — to lead the Cardinals’ offense.
Patrick Corbin (3-4) started and went 5 1/3 innings for the Rangers, giving up two runs on three hits and two walks while striking out three. Corbin has surrendered three runs or less in all 10 of his starts this season but has just one win in his past seven appearances.
The Cardinals manufactured the game’s first run in the second inning, with Contreras walking, going to second on a wild pitch by Corbin, moving to third on a groundout, and trotting home on a sacrifice fly to deep center field from Nolan Arenado.
In the fourth, Contreras doubled home Winn to make it 2-0 after Winn opened the frame with a double into the left field corner.
Texas threatened in the fifth as Jake Burger singled and Marcus Semien singled, the latter with two outs. But Gray worked out of the jam by coaxing Kyle Higashioka to fly out.
The Rangers had baserunners in the seventh and eighth innings but could not score.