ST. LOUIS — Joe Musgrove had a bunch of good innings and a bad one. The Padres’ hitters had one good inning and a bunch in which they were almost good.

And then they got a home run from Kyle Higashioka.

You didn’t really think they weren’t going to come back, did you?

Higashioka’s blast was their 17th game-tying or go ahead home run this season, most in the major leagues. And it set up the possibility of their 29th victory earned when trailing or tied in the seventh inning or later.

Alas, this one did not end the way so many have.

In the previous seven games in which the Padres lost a lead, they rebounded to win. Overall, they were 28-17 in games in which they lost a lead.

Wednesday, they failed to get a runner home from second base with no outs in the ninth and lost 4-3 when the Cardinals scored in the bottom of the inning on Nolan Arenado’s walk-off single.

Three two-out hits off closer Robert Suarez, culminating in Arenado’s grounder into center field, left the Padres to lament so many lost opportunities.

Musgrove would complete six innings while allowing three runs and seven hits, five of those in a three-run fourth that turned the game around.

The Padres had scored two runs in the first inning before going into a funk with runners in scoring position and then appearing to flatline for a few innings before Higashioka’s blast down the left field line jolted them.

The loss ended a streak of three consecutive victories, including the first two in this four-game set at Busch Stadium. It may also have dropped the Padres out of a tie for the National League’s top wild-card spot, though they would have to wait until the Diamondbacks’ game against the Mets in Phoenix ended to find that out.

At least, St. Louis’ fever broke.

It rained hard for five minutes about an hour-and-a-half before Wednesday’s game, and it was a dozen degrees cooler at first pitch than the 98 announced at the start of Wednesday’s game.

The Padres came out looking refreshed a night after they came back to win Wednesday’s nearly three-hour slog in the smothering humidity.

They scored a run when three of the game’s first four batters hit hard grounders that skipped through the middle of the infield. Those hits, by Luis Arraez, Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado, also gave the Padres runners at the corners with one out.

The next batter, Xander Bogaerts, struck out on a 3-2 pitch on which Machado took off for second base. And when Cardinals catcher Pedro Pagés threw to second, Cronenworth started running home. Thus, he was credited with a steal, as he would have scored even if Pagés’ throw had not sailed way over second baseman Brendan Donovan’s head and into center field.

Jackson Merrill lined out to end the first inning, which began a run of futility that would haunt the Padres.

They got at least one runner in scoring position the next three innings, including one of them with one out, and failed to score.

They paid for it when Musgrove, who had thrown just 29 pitches in the first three innings, had his command escape him in the fourth.

And after Musgrove got the first out of the inning, running his streak to nine consecutive batters retired, five of the next six Cardinals batters got hits. Three of them scored.

Musgrove would take 27 pitches to navigate the inning before getting through his night on 94 pitches.

Sean Reynolds worked a scoreless seventh and Jason Adam worked a scoreless eighth.

But the Padres did not get in the sixth or seventh inning and did not get one after that outside of Higashioka’s two-out homer in the eighth and Arraez’s lead-off double in the ninth.