Leake’s struggles follow familiar pattern

ST. LOUIS — In what is becoming an all-to-frequent trend with Mike Leake on the mound, the veteran right-hander watched innings unravel behind him on Saturday night because both he and the defense weren’t sharper.

This time, plays not made and pitches not executed left the Cardinals with a 7-2 loss to the Dodgers that sapped any momentum building from a five-game winning streak and a 16-inning victory one night earlier. The sequence of events was familiar, too, as Leake endured a pair of big innings complicated by defensive miscues and strings of hits.

“It just seems like it gets magnified when one play goes a little sour,” manager Mike Matheny said. “And that seems to add up a lot of runs on him.”

After briefly straying from his contact-inducing ways and recording 21 strikeouts in his last two starts, Leake needed help from his defense in a four-strikeout start on Saturday. It first let him down in the third, when second baseman Greg Garcia, readying for a potential steal, broke toward second and failed to react in time to revert to first when Kenta Maeda laid down a safety-squeeze bunt with runners on the corners.

Leake, uncertain if …

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