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Gray set season highs in innings with nine and strikeouts with 11 to lead his team to a 5-0 win over the Guardians at Progressive Field. The outing was Gray鈥檚 first complete game since he signed with the Cardinals ahead of the 2024 season and his first nine-inning inning complete game since Aug. 7, 2015. Before Friday, Gray last threw a complete game shutout on July 28, 2015, which was one of two that season. The other came on July 12 of that season from the same mound where Friday鈥檚 effort came from.

He completed his latest complete game on 89 pitches, 66 of which were strikes.

Gray flirted with perfection through 4 2/3 innings before the Guardians had their first batter reach base. With two outs in the fifth inning, Nolan Jones singled to right field on a ball that jumped off his bat at 110.1 mph, per Statcast.

The hit by Jones was the lone hit Gray allowed. He did not walk a batter as he totaled a season-high in strikeouts and his most strikeouts as a Cardinals since he struck out 12 in 6 1/3 innings on April 21, 2024, against the Brewers.

To back his strong outing, Gray received a lift on offense in the third inning that came on homers from catcher Pedro Pages and Alec Burleson. A solo home run by Pages that led off the third inning marked the first run for the Cardinals since the fourth inning of a win on Tuesday vs. the Cubs.

The solo homer by Gray鈥檚 batterymate opened a three-run inning that was followed by a two-out, two-run home run by Burleson that scored Masyn Winn after Winn reached base on a force out. Burleson added to his night in the sixth inning when he doubled off Guardians starter Luis Ortiz, who gave his club seven innings on 102 pitches.

An RBI double by Nolan Arenado in the sixth inning extended the Cardinals鈥� lead to four. The star third baseman connected on a single in the eighth inning to push it to a 5-0 lead.

Gray Ks 4 in a row

During his stretch of retiring the first 14 batters he faced, Gray recorded six strikeouts. Four of those came in consecutive fashion.

The string of strikeouts by Gray began when he froze Kyle Manzardo with a 1-2 sweeper to end the second inning. It was followed by a whiff from David Fry on three pitches during which Fry fouled off a cutter and a sinker before Gray got him to whiff on a sweeper thrown low-and-away.

Gray鈥檚 ability to get back-to-back swings-and-misses on his curveball against Daniel Schneemann notched a third consecutive strikeout on four pitches for Gray. The righty retired Nolan Jones on three pitches 鈥� a sequence that ended with a swing-and-miss on a sweeper 鈥� to give him a fourth consecutive strikeout.

Gabriel Arias鈥檚 ground out to begin the third snapped Gray鈥檚 consecutive strikeouts.

Making quick work

Gray鈥檚 ability to retire Guardians hitters in quick fashion kept him pitch count to 30 through three innings as he compiled five of his 10 strikeouts in that span. A 10-pitch inning in the seventh inning and an opportunity to pitch the eighth.

Before he took the mound to begin the frame, a two-out rally that included walks from Willson Contreras and Lars Nootbaar and RBI single from Nolan Arenado gave him a 5-0 lead to work with.

Gray used 11 pitches to bookend his longest outing since becoming a Cardinal in November 2023.

Ortiz sees inning slip

After two of the next three batters were retired 鈥� on one a ground out and another on a force out 鈥� following Pages鈥� homer, a throwing error and a mental error by Ortiz added to his workload as the Cardinals added onto their lead.

With Masyn Winn standing on first base following a force out at second base of Brendan Donovan, who walked, a pickoff attempt by Ortiz could not be hauled in by first baseman Manzardo, allowing Winn to advance to second base. Winn scored shortly after on Burleson鈥檚 two-run homer that bounced sailed just over the wall in right field.

Ortiz got Willson Contreras to hit a soft grounder that pulled Manzardo well away from the first base bag as he ranged to field. The play had the makings of an inning-ending out, but Ortiz鈥檚 delay to cover first base and attention away from the play for what appeared to be some frustration led Manzardo鈥檚 backhanded toss to the bag to bounced into foul territory.

An eight-pitch at-bat from Lars Nootbaar that ended in a groundout that got Ortiz out of the inning but not before the Cardinals ran his pitch count to 58 through three innings.