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“I’m going to wake up tomorrow — or not wake up,� Pallante said, interrupting himself late Saturday in the Cardinals’ clubhouse. “I’m probably not going to sleep tonight.�

The shortest start of his season and what he called “one of the worst� of his career was over with quickly enough in the second inning that Pallante had plenty time while the Cardinals were losing, 9-1, to begin the autopsy on his outing. The right-hander allowed more runs (six) than he collected outs (five), and eight of the 13 Cubs he faced reached base in the loss at Busch Stadium.

Pallante’s first curveball of the evening was struck for a leadoff double by Michael Busch, and the one pitch he felt he could trust the most — a slider — was rocked for a three-run homer by Busch an inning later. Pallante’s fastball was temperamental. His curveball had moments were it was flighty and not competitive. The Cubs could ignore it, key on the slider or fastball and let loose.

“You look at a lot of the pitches and they were just thigh-high and the rest of them were non-competitive pitches out of the hand,� manager Oliver Marmol said. “Which makes it tough because you can just eliminate and wait for something that you can do damage on. They did a really nice job in the way they approached him. He didn’t have a whole lot for them. And it turned into a very short outing.�

And it put Pallante at a pitching paradox.

He is both in uncharted territory and also well-trodden ground.

Pallante has surpassed his previous career high for single-season innings in the majors, outpacing last year’s 121 1/3 innings with now 123 2/3. He’s nearing his workload for all of last season, some of which was spent at Class AAA, and this is the longest stretch of his upper-level career that he’s been a starter. Marmol did not dismiss fatigue as a factor for Pallante, saying that “it might play into it, yeah, (and) we’re going to continue to monitor it.�

An ongoing and familiar factor for Pallante is his quest to expand the way he uses his pitches and the types of pitches he has to use.

Few pitchers get as many groundballs as Pallante whether they’re peers or before his time. His 64.6% groundball rate is the eighth-highest in the majors since 1987, 11 years before he was born. What that number means is he’s able to get a lot of groundouts but also he’s dealing with a lot of baseballs in play. When the defense falters — as it did briefly in Saturday’s loss — issues can compound, and fast. To improve his chances, Pallante has worked on pitches that he can try when ahead in the count to get swing and misses, and he’s found a way to use his clever fastball that better challenges left-handed batters.

Now they’re onto it.

“The way I’ve been really good to lefties is I’ve been pounding them with my fastball inside, and they’re starting to make that adjustment, starting to hit that pitch pretty well,� Pallante said. “So you know, for me, it becomes expanding my game, expanding my repertoire to something else I can do to offset. When you have a day like when you’re trying to work on stuff and it’s just not there for you, stuff like this happens.�

It became clear early in his outing Saturday that his repertoire was going to shrink, not expand. His curveball was ineffective — either an obvious ball the hitter could ignore or a pitch over the plate no hitter would ignore. Is fastball lacked accuracy. He leaned hard into his slider and threw it more than any other pitch, but it only got him one swing and miss. Ten swings on the slider yielded five put in play.

Three of the first four Cubs of the game tagged him for base hits, and the Cardinals trailed 2-0 by the time the fifth batter came up. In the second inning, Pallante faced seven batters and five reached base — Busch cleared them with his homer — before Marmol made the quick move to the bullpen. Pallante threw 53 pitches.

He said the start was so short it took watching it again to sense how poor his stuff was.

“Wow, I really didn’t have anything working for me,� Pallante said, recreating his reaction when watching video of his outing. He also added: “That was one of the worst outings of my career for sure. Not really commanding anything well. A lot to learn from this game. A lot went wrong. That starts now.�

Sharpening and improving and expanding his secondary pitches has been the goal so the right-hander has a different look to show hitters and can be less reliant on soft contact.

That will be what separates a long-term starter from a reliever.

It can also give him something to cling to when other pitches misbehave.

“You try to battle through it, and just slow down and make the adjustment so some of those big misses become small misses,� Marmol said. “It’s tough when you’re missing that big. And then you’re just trying to throw strikes. And when you throw strikes they’re over the middle of the plate and you get hurt. It’s a bad combo.�

Pallante (6-9) lost for the seventh time in his past eight starts. He has a 6.10 ERA in those starts and that includes two sturdy starts when he held the Marlins and Padres to two runs total in 12 innings. He shut out Miami for seven innings in his previous start at home. In that game he landed his four-seam fastball, challenged the Marlins with it, and was able to then play off that for six swings and misses with his slider.

He got 10 groundballs total but also 11 swings and misses and 21 pitches over the plate called for a strike or whiffed on by batters.

That is how he got through a game with a feel for his pitches and when plays are made behind him. On Saturday, he didn’t have that feel — and could not halt, let alone slow, what followed.

“You’re not going to luck into outs here often enough,� Pallante said. “Keeping working on it. And try to be more consistent. So that way I don’t need luck.�

Cubs 9, Cardinals 1

Chicago AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Busch 1b 5 2 2 3 0 1 .266

Suzuki dh 4 1 1 0 1 0 .251

Tucker rf 4 2 1 1 1 1 .272

Kelly c 4 0 3 1 0 0 .276

McGuire ph-c 1 0 0 0 0 1 .235

Crw-Armstrng cf 5 0 0 0 0 0 .258

Happ lf 4 0 1 1 0 1 .232

Castro ph-lf 1 0 0 0 0 0 .160

Hoerner 2b 4 0 0 0 0 0 .289

Berti ph-2b 1 0 0 0 0 1 .210

Swanson ss 4 2 3 0 0 1 .250

Shaw 3b 3 2 2 2 1 0 .227

Totals 40 9 13 8 3 6

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ AB R H BI BB SO Avg.

Nootbaar cf-lf 5 1 1 0 0 3 .229

Herrera dh 4 0 1 0 0 2 .300

Burleson lf-1b 3 0 0 1 1 1 .282

Scott cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 .223

Contreras 1b 2 0 1 0 1 0 .260

Hampson lf-3b 1 0 0 0 0 1 .120

Winn ss 4 0 0 0 0 1 .269

Gorman 3b-1b 2 0 1 0 2 0 .227

Walker rf 4 0 1 0 0 1 .240

Pozo c 4 0 1 0 0 0 .273

Saggese 2b 4 0 1 0 0 1 .239

Totals 33 1 7 1 4 10

Chicago 241 110 000 — 9 13 0

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ 000 001 000 — 1 7 2

E: Walker (2), Pozo (5). LOB: Chicago 7, ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ 9. 2B: Busch (16), Suzuki (26), Nootbaar (17), Herrera (10). 3B: Shaw (1). HR: Busch (22), off Pallante; Shaw (8), off Fernandez. RBIs: Tucker (62), Busch 3 (64), Kelly (38), Shaw 2 (28), Happ (55), Burleson (51). SB: Tucker (24). DP: Chicago 1.

Chicago IP H R ER BB SO ERA

Rea, W, 9-5 6 3 1 1 2 6 4.09

Thielbar 1 1 0 0 0 1 2.28

Rogers 1 1 0 0 1 2 0.00

Pomeranz 1 2 0 0 1 1 1.91

ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ IP H R ER BB SO ERA

Pallante, L, 6-9 12/3 7 6 6 1 0 4.95

Graceffo 21/3 4 2 2 1 0 5.81

Fernandez 3 2 1 1 0 4 10.38

Muñoz 2 0 0 0 1 2 6.52

Inherited runners-scored: Graceffo 1-0. T: 3:02. Att.: 40,048.