ST. LOUIS — Mickey Gasper grounded a ball towards the hole at short and then started his sprint towards first. When he reached the bag, he stretched out his arms, signifying safe. First base umpire Mike Estabrook agreed.

The first hit of his career was a long-time coming for the 29-year-old, who made his first career Opening Day roster earlier in the week and now has a hit to show for it after 23 plate appearances last year with the Boston Red Sox that did not yield a hit.

“I was excited,” he said. “I was trying to start an inning, get us back in the game.”

His hit, which came in the eighth inning of the Twins’ 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday at Busch Stadium, was the Twins’ first since the second inning on a slow day for the offense.

Gasper flew out in each of his first two at-bats, before finally getting that long-awaited hit his third time up.

“That’s why you run hard down the line,” Gasper said. “I always got yelled at by my dad to run hard, so it just turned out wet grass today. (shortstop Masyn) Winn made a nice play getting up on his belly and I was able to beat it out.”

Gasper, a career .275 hitter in the minors, got his first taste of the majors last season, called up in August by the Red Sox. He played in parts of 13 different games, going 0 for 18 and sending him into the 2025 season on the hunt for his first hit.

“There’s nothing wrong with failure. You’ve got to learn. That’s a part of life and especially a part of this game,” Gasper said during spring training. “To fail at (the major league) level and to have a little bit of success but for the most part, kind of get punched in the mouth a little bit, it sets me up to be hungry for sure, I’ll tell you that.”

Now, finally, he has a hit to his name, and some of his loved ones — his parents and fiancée — were in attendance to witness it in person after watching him through years of hard work.

“That’s why you play, for them,” he said. “All the hours my dad, my mom put in getting me to practices and games, coaching, it’s really all for them.”

Top of lineup searching

Gasper’s hit was one of just three for the Twins on Saturday. None of those three came from Matt Wallner, Carlos Correa or Byron Buxton, the three hitters batting atop the Twins’ lineup.

That trio is a combined 0 for 23 on the season, despite some hard-hit balls. On Saturday, Correa hit three balls over 100 miles per hour (105.1, 101.8, 100.6) with nothing to show for it. Buxton’s seventh-inning groundout was struck at 102.2 mph.

“We want to keep just barreling a lot of balls,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’ve had some guys hit some balls hard. … The guys who are swinging it good but not getting much out of it, they need to keep doing what they’re doing and not try to do something else.”

Briefly

Bailey Ober is expected to start Sunday’s series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals but a forecast calling for storms in the afternoon may threaten that game. … With a single in the second inning on Saturday, Trevor Larnach extended his hitting streak to six games dating back to last year, which is a career high.