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Face them only with a lead, and they’ll catch up there, too.

In his sixth appearance of this season against the archrival Cubs, Ryan Helsley blinked for the first time. The Cubs scored three runs off the Cardinals’ All-Star closer in the ninth inning to overcome a two-run deficit and win, 5-4, on Matt Tauchman’s walk-off double Thursday night at Wrigley Field. The Cubs tagged Helsley with three extra-base hits, two of them on off-speed pitches and all of them with two strikes. Several of the pitches were elevated against a lineup that has seen him often and succeeded more than others.

Given the trends of this season perhaps what is true for the Cubs at times against Helsley was also true for the result: Should have seen it coming.

“Probably need to look at it and go at it a little bit,� Helsley said late Thursday night in the visitors’ clubhouse at Wrigley after only his third blown save of the season. “These guys have given me some tough times this year. I need to go look at some film, see how I approach them, and maybe try to make a few tweaks.�

The turnaround in the ninth against one of the game’s top closers smudged what almost was a notable win for the Cardinals. Paul Goldschmidt had three hits, including a solo homer, to continue his second half uptick. Sonny Gray, his ERA nearing 7.00 over his previous five starts, struck out nine and pitched seven strong innings before leaving with the lead. Rookie Masyn Winn yanked the Cardinals back into the lead with a two-run homer in the seventh to overtake what had been a 2-1 advantage for the Cubs.

A seesaw game defined mostly by home runs reached Helsley (4-4) in the ninth with a two-run lead and found the Cardinals still unbeaten this season when leading after eight innings.

Both of those vanished.

Before the unravel came the fray. With one out, Helsley used his fastball to get ahead on Cody Bellinger. The Cubs’ designated hitter, Bellinger fouled off a 100.3-mph fastball to keep the count 1-2. The next pitch, Bellinger planted in the bleachers some 399 feet away.

It was the only curveball Helsley threw all night.

“Liked it. Felt good about it,� Helsley said of the curve. “Breaking ball has been good this year. Looking back at it probably left them up too much.�

As a tight pitching duel between Gray and Cubs lefty Shota Imanaga reached its second act, Gray appeared to be getting better. He got 17 outs from the final 19 batters he faced. He struck nine in the game, but six of them came in the span of eight batters. He toggled between his two breaking pitches – a biting curve and that elite sweeping slider – and he was able to get five swings and misses on the sweep alone. But what set that all up, what primed the Cubs for the mid-game windmills of strikeouts was Gray assertive use of his fastball.

He spoke late Thursday about adjusting his mentality after five disappointing starts, and he was asked if there was a pitch that helps him establish that.

“It’s not a pitch,� Gray said. “You just have to live it. You have to live it every day, practice it. There’s a lot that goes into that. I know that’s when I am at my best is when I do have an edge to me, when I take the ball with an edge. That’s where I wanted to try and focus on and get back to.�

For Helsley, that edge is his fastball.

The respect for it makes his other pitches just as sinister.

The fastball is where that begins.

His slider often where it ends.

Helsley rode his high-octane fastball to the majors, into a high-leverage role, and into the ninth inning. This season he’s followed it all the way to 33 saves, including 31 consecutive, and an All-Star nod. It sizzles at an average of 99 mph, and it can be an overpowering pitch, sometimes reaching up toward 104 mph. But beneath the hood of this muscle car there’s something that stands out: Opponents have hit .306 against Helsley’s fastball this season, according to Baseball Savant. That’s up from .224 a year ago.

This is where the Cubs come in.

Early this season, in their first look at the right-hander of the season, the Cubs sure swung like they’d seen him before. Helsley did not get a single swing-and-miss in the inning. The Cubs dinged him for four hits and two runs before Helsley held firm for his 16th save. In all five previous games against the Cubs, Helsley completed the save. But no team has had more success getting on base or getting hits against the Cardinals’ closer this season.

They have 12 hits and 16 baserunners in Helsley’s 5 2/3 innings against them this season. Two of the three home runs he's allowed this season have been hit by Cubs. But, Helsley had five saves in his previous five games against them. The innings bent and did not burst, and he appeared to adjust outing to outing, sometimes on back-to-back days.

He was able to make sure more than just the score was keeping ahead of them. 

He threw different mixes of pitches at the Cubs.

In five of the six outings against the Cubs, Helsley has thrown more sliders than he has fastballs. On Thursday, the difference was only 12 to 11, but he’s had outings this season where he’s thrown 13 sliders to only nine four-seam fastballs.

The one time he threw more fastballs than sliders against the Cubs he also got four swings and misses from the Cubs.

All of the, however, were on the slider.

“That’s a game-to-game, batter-to-batter, reading the hitter,� manager Oliver Marmol said when asked about Helsley flipping the script on the Cubs. “It’s not scripted. Where it’s, ‘This is what I’m doing today.’ There have been games and he just doesn’t have a feel for the slider as well as he would like, and therefore he throws more fastballs. Or vice versa. He’s missing arm side with the fastball, (so he) throws more sliders in order to get back on plane with it. It’s not a ‘Today, I’m doing this.’�

The pitch mix against the Cubs is part of a shift in the season.

Helsley is utilizing more off-speed pitches overall, and he’s down to 43.9% fastballs from greater than 50% each of the past three seasons. Going into Thursday’s game, 48.9% of his pitches this season have been sliders. His previous high for a season was 36.7%.

“Familiarity can breed some confidence,� the Cubs’ Tauchman said. “There are no secrets when you see a guy (this often). Obviously, we don’t see him as much as we used to. Yeah, (for) both sides, at this point in the season you’ve probably seen just about every guy on their team a couple of times. That’s the beautiful thing about baseball, and that’s the chess match. Who is going to make the adjustments they need and the adjustment to the adjustment.�

After Bellinger launched a curveball for a solo homer to begin the scoring in the ninth, Helsley pocketed it. He did, however, go more to the slider.

Nico Hoerner jumped a first-pitch fastball for a two-out single. Helsley got ahead 0-2 on Dansby Swanson with back-to-back sliders. Swanson ignored one in the dirt before getting a fourth consecutive slider. Swanson fouled that off. When Helsley went back to the slider for a fifth consecutive time, Swanson tied the game with a two-out, two-strike double. Helsley got ahead, 0-2, on the next batter, Tauchman, with a slider and then a 98.4-mph fastball.

Helsley alternated those pitches for balls.

Tauchman ignored a slider in the dirt, and when he got the heater he poked it to left field for the walk-off double. The last hit was the only one of the three decisive hits for the Cubs to come against Helsley’s fastball. They’ve seen it often. It only took them six tries to turn that familiarity into a favorable result.

It will take one for Helsley to throw a new look at them.

“Try to mix in a fastball maybe,� Helsley said as he went through the at-bats that ended in doubles. “Or make sure (the slider is) more of a chase pitch instead of a strike. … Trying to find that balance. Find out when I’m at my best – and hone that in.�