ST. LOUIS >> Pablo López talked of setting the tone for the game, for the series, for the season a day before making his third consecutive Opening Day start for the Twins.

Surely, a day as uncharacteristic as the one he had on Thursday was not what he envisioned. Twice, he had a runner break for second and was in position to throw him out. He could have gotten both out. Instead, both scored. He also allowed a rare home run on a changeup — something he did just once on 599 changeups last season.

When all was said and done, the starter had surrendered four runs (two earned), issued a costly balk and threw a ball away trying to nab a runner at second. After a rain delay that lasted nearly two hours, López made two missteps in the field and gave up runs in each of the first three innings. The Twins would never recover, falling 5-3 to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium to open the 2025 season.

“If I would have just stayed a little more under control, slowed the game down a little bit, those could have been two free outs that could have been huge in the game,” the starter said.

After former Twin Sonny Gray sent his ex-teammates down on six pitches in the top of the first, López labored through the bottom of the inning, allowing a single, issuing a balk that caused Rocco Baldelli to emerge from the dugout to get an explanation and then allowing another pair of hits.

An inning later, after the Twins had stranded the bases loaded in the top of the second, Lars Nootbaar got ahold of a two-strike changeup and sent it out over the fence in right field, bringing in two runs. That followed a throwing error in which López’s throw to catch the runner attempting to steal went into the outfield rather than shortstop Carlos Correa’s glove.

“It’s one of my best pitches, especially to lefties,” López said of the changeup. “They say big leaguers make adjustments pitch-to-pitch instead of at-bat to at-bat, and (Nootbaar) was one step ahead of me.”

López’s day ended in the fifth, at which point he had given up four runs and been outdueled by his former rotation-mate.Gray was unscored upon until the fifth inning when former Cardinal Harrison Bader, who was greeted earlier with a round of applause from the fans, took a pitch out to left field for a two-run home run in his Twins debut.

“He knows how to locate, his ball moves a lot. And when guys do that extremely well, (and) they attack different parts of the zone, you really just try to slow everything down and just be super quiet in the box,” Bader said of Gray. “Obviously I popped one there, but it doesn’t happen often off him.”

The Twins tacked on another run in the sixth inning with Willi Castro coming through with an RBI double to score Trevor Larnach, right after Ty France had been robbed of extra bases by center fielder Victor Scott II.

But the Twins wouldn’t get any closer than that as Griffin Jax allowed a home run to Nolan Arenado in the eighth, and the Twins left Bader on second to end the game.

“It’s definitely not the outcome we’re looking for,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “But we were right where we wanted to be in a lot of these situations.”.