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ATLANTA — The challenge for the Cardinals now is to avoid seeing this skid careen into a spiral like the eighth inning did Monday night and letting a pileup of close, gut-punch losses become a roadblock their season never gets around.

The Cardinals’ latest jarring loss began in the eighth inning as previously untouchable reliever Phil Maton misplaced a one-run lead amid two walks and what mushroomed into a five-run inning for Atlanta. The Cardinals mounted a rally in the ninth to tidy up the score before losing 7-6 to Atlanta at Truist Field. The game ended on a groundout that barely traveled the diameter of the baseball.

The loss was the Cardinals’ fifth in a row.

They’ve lost 10 of their first 11 on the road in 2025.

In three of their past four losses, the deciding run came in the opponents’ final at-bat.

They’re 0-5 in one-run games.

And on.

And on ...

“It’s easy to get pissed off after games like this and it turns into this big stretch where everything is just awful,� Maton said. “I don’t think this is a team that we’re falling apart because we lost a few games.

“I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t frustrating,� the veteran reliever continued. “I think we’re playing good baseball overall. It’s just one of those things where we’re maybe a hit away here, there, or a guy putting up a zero here or there, and we win those games. It’s April 21st. I don’t think we’re going to put our whole season on what happens in the first two road trips. We need to turn it around and get those big hits and put up those big zeroes.�

Off to one of the worst road starts in the club’s 130-year history in the National League, the Cardinals have yet to be flushed completely out of any of the games on this road trip despite the bottom-line results. Starting with the four losses in New York and continuing with Monday’s loss in suburban Atlanta, the games have been decided by a combined 11 runs. Not one decided by more than three runs.

The Cardinals paired Victor Scott II’s RBI double and Willson Contreras’ two-run homer in the ninth inning off closer Raisel Iglesias to tighten the score Monday and eventually get the tying run on base before the game ended.

They previously had something Monday they’d not possessed since Friday in Queens — a lead. And they even got it into the hands of Maton, who had not allowed a walk or earned run all season until he allowed all of that. Atlanta turned a successful replay challenge, an infield single, two walks, a ground-ball RBI and sacrifice fly into a 4-3 lead — and then extended it with Sean Murphy’s three-run homer off JoJo Romero in the eighth.

A well-played game became just another in a line of L's.

“We have to be mentally strong to go through these kind of down periods because what I’m extremely confident of is we’re building toward something that could be a lot of fun,� manager Oliver Marmol said.

The losing just makes winning traits that harder to see.

“When you’re developing, you want to develop a winning mentality, and you want to be rewarded when you play the game well, do certain little things well,� Marmol said. “When you’re on the wrong side of that, it’s difficult sometimes to see the fact that you’re making progress in certain areas as a player. It’s always good to get rewarded with shaking hands and feeling good about coming into the clubhouse and building off of that.�

Before being scattered by the loss, there were building blocks Monday, just as there were beyond the box scores in the four games lost over the weekend to the Mets.

Bombarded by Atlanta earlier in his career — before he reinvented himself with a year in Korea’s top league — Erick Fedde collected a quality start by holding Atlanta to two runs on five hits through six innings. He pitched most of the game with a calf muscle that was swelling and tightening on him after being struck by a line drive in the second inning. Fedde and the team’s head athletic trainer worked between the bottom of innings to keep the muscle loose and address bruising.

Fedde said the muscle felt fine when he was pitching, but everywhere else, it was sore — as it was late Monday night as he hesitated putting weight on it to talk with the media.

By the time Fedde left the game, Nolan Gorman’s second hit of the evening snapped a tie and gave the Cardinals their slim lead. Gorman doubled and scored on an error in the second to key the rally that claimed a 2-0 lead against Atlanta. Austin Riley knotted the game with a two-run homer off Fedde’s flattened sinker in the third inning. Fedde then got 12 outs from the final 13 batters he faced — all of them with that sore calf. And Gorman delivered in the sixth with an RBI single of Atlanta starter Spencer Schwellenbach to earn a 3-2 lead for the Cardinals.

Auditioning relievers for the seventh-inning role in close games, the Cardinals got their chance to see how Kyle Leahy did holding a one-run lead.

He retired all three batters he faced.

There was a buoyancy building for the Cardinals. A young hitter struggling like Gorman had two key hits. A veteran hitter like Contreras had two hits to raise his average to .182. An Atlanta native in his first game in Atlanta, Scott had three hits and a stolen base. A young reliever like Leahy had held tight to the slimmest of leads.

“Again, good baseball,� Marmol said. “Until it wasn’t.�

Maton struck out the first batter he faced in the eighth inning, and he got the ground ball from Riley that appeared to be the second out. The ump called it that way. Atlanta challenged, and a replay showed Riley edged Brendan Donovan’s throw. Spelling Masyn Winn at shortstop until his likely return from injury Tuesday, Donovan has played reliably well at shortstop. He got caught just behind on his throw, and that meant Riley was safe.

Instead of two outs and the middle of Atlanta’s order up, Maton had to deal with one out and the tying run at first.

He judiciously pitched around Marcell Ozuna to issue his first walk of the season.

But that put Riley in scoring position, so when Matt Olson skipped a ground ball to right field, Riley wheeled around third to score the tying run. A walk to Ozzie Albies followed, and the fourth ball was close enough to the strike zone that Marmol’s colorful commentary on it to umpire Mark Carlson earned him an ejection, his first of the season. Maton entered with a one-run lead and exited with the bases loaded and a tie game. It was not for long.

Michael Harris II’s sacrifice fly snapped the tie, Murphy’s home run obliterated it, and it proved essential when the Cardinals rallied.

Which they do, just not enough.

“We continue to do that part of it,� Marmol said. “If you remove yourself from the results — which I’m trying to do at the moment — the guys are building toward something that is good. But to be on the losing side of it again is just frustrating.�

That is the bind the Cardinals are in.

It can be difficult to believe the play is better when the results feel worse and worse.

“Like I said — it’s April 21st, and if we’re doing this in September it’s a little bit more frustrating,� Maton said. “We’d have to answer some more questions. Right now, I think we’re playing competitive games, we’re playing close games, and eventually they’re going to go our way if we continuing doing what we need to do.�