Andre Pallante dominated Cleveland Guardians hitters as the St. Louis Cardinals scored a 2-1 victory yesterday at Busch Stadium.

Pallante (8-8) had a no-hitter until Myles Straw broke it up with a single in the sixth.

Straw stole second and third base before scoring on a beautiful squeeze bunt by Austin Hedges to give the Guardians a 1-0 lead.

However, Cleveland only mustered that one hit by Straw in seven innings against Pallante.

CARDINAL COMEBACK

St.  Louis tied the game in the bottom of the sixth when Nolan Arenado’s infield hit scored Masyn Winn.

In the seventh, Winn drew a walk on a wild pitch by Andrew Walters. Lars Nootbaar raced all the way from second to score the winning run for the Cardinals.

The good news for Cleveland was that Gavin Williams looked great on the mound. He missed the first half of the season with an injury and posted a 3-10 record in the second half.

Yesterday, Williams pitched 5 2/3 innings, giving up just four hits and a run.

Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley earned his 47th save, moving ahead of Emmanuel Clase for the major-league lead.

WILD-CARD ROUND? NO THANKS

After clinching the AL Central championship over the weekend, the Guardians’ next order of business is to stay out of the wild-card round.

Cleveland has a magic number of two with the Houston Astros to clinch one of the top two seeds in the AL and secure a bye through the wild-card round.

The Guardians will finish the regular season with five games this week. Cincinnati will visit on Tuesday night, with Tanner Bibee (11-8) starting for Cleveland against the Reds’ Jakob Junis (4-0).

Cincinnati (76-81) couldn’t wait until the end of the season and fired manager David Bell yesterday.