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The inconsistencies he saw with the movement and location of his slider as a result of trouble getting the right grip Sunday against the Padres left Cardinals rookie Michael McGreevy with an outing to learn from.

Making his first start since a spot was cleared for him earlier this week to become a full-time member of the Cardinals’ rotation, McGreevy surrendered a career-high seven runs and nine hits over 4 2/3 innings in his first time facing the Padres. The 25-year-old right-hander needed 99 pitches to get through an outing that began with walking leadoff hitter Fernando Tatis Jr. in a two-run inning where he had the All-Star right fielder in an 0-2 count.

“Really awesome to start off 0-2 to Tatis, but it’s absolutely unacceptable ... walking the first batter of the game,� McGreevy said. “I just need to be more competitive than that. ... From then on, it was just inconsistency with the slider. That’s my strikeout pitch. That’s my rollover pitch. That’s the weak contact pitch. The misses were just too uncompetitive to a really good team that kind of honey holed me a little bit.�

McGreevy allowed an additional run to score in the third inning on a ground out from Jackson Merrill, then saw the Padres push across four runs in a fourth inning that took 32 pitches to get through in the Cardinals’ 9-2 loss at Busch Stadium.

The early hole was one the Cardinals (54-53) could not climb out of as Padres starter Stephen Kolek recorded eight ground outs and two runs over six innings. The two runs the Cardinals scored on Kolek and in the loss came from Alec Burleson’s two-run homer in the sixth inning, when they trailed 7-0.

With the loss, the Cardinals settled for a series tie in a four-game set against the Padres after dropping back-to-back games Saturday and Sunday. The loss dropped the Cardinals to 3 1/2 games behind the Padres, who they face for a three-game set next week in San Diego, in the chase for the final National League wild-card spot.

“They out-executed us over the last two, and you split the series. We’ll see them again here shortly,� Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said.

Viewed as one of the top strike-throwers during his ascent through the Cardinals farm system, McGreevy fell into 1-0 counts to half of the 26 batters he faced. His slider, a pitch that had a 37.5% whiff rate while with Class AAA Memphis this season, was used 25 times. It led to four whiffs and landed for a called strike twice.

McGreevy notched two strikeouts in the start, with one coming against Elias Diaz in the second inning and another of Tatis in the fourth. Both of the sequences to record the strikeouts ended with a whiff on his slider.

Of the seven sliders by McGreevy put in play by the Padres, two resulted in two-run doubles by Machado in the first and fourth innings. Another was hit for a single by Jake Cronenworth with no outs in the fourth inning, marking a second consecutive single in what amounted to a four-run frame.

“It’s not that I wasn’t able to throw strikes with it, it’s just not good strikes,� McGreevy said. “I think the ball Manny Machado hit in that first inning, it’s a strike. It’s just not a good strike at all. All strikes aren’t good strikes. All balls aren’t bad balls. It’s just a matter of not setting myself up for success with that pitch. There were more strikeouts to be had on the table, and because that pitch was a little funky today, I just wasn’t able to do it.�

What can be done to navigate an outing when his best swing-and-miss pitch, one that helped him 3.72 ERA in 75 innings in Memphis this season, remains inconsistent?

“You’ve got to go to the other pitches,� McGreevy said. “I think it was (Matthew Liberatore) and I were talking about it earlier. I was talking about the slider, saying you can’t lose conviction. Even though I knew I didn’t have it that day, when the opportunity did arise where I needed to throw the slider anyway, I wasn’t scared to do it. I wasn’t backing off or passive. It’s that you still have conviction with it. It’s just one of those days where the best pitch just wasn’t there.�

Heading into Sunday’s start, McGreevy held a 3.49 ERA in five big league outings this year — four of which were spot starts. He held a 2.81 ERA in 51 1/3 innings when you include his four outings (three starts) in the majors last season.

McGreevy had allowed more than four runs in an outing just once before taking the mound Sunday with his club in reach of their first series win since the final week of June. He walked five total batters in his nine appearances for the Cardinals before issuing two walks against San Diego in an outing that left him with experiences to build from.

“You have to learn from your good outings. You’ve got to learn from your bad outings,� Marmol said. “This is going to be one where, no different than any other, you sit down, you have your review tomorrow, you figure out what you did well and what you didn’t and continue to grow. There’s going to be a lot of that over this stretch.

“(McGreevy is) really good about that. It gives you hope that you’re going to continue to take steps in the right direction.�