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When catcher Pedro Pages approached Gold Glove-winner Brendan Donovan in the dugout Friday night and asked to borrow his form-fitting infielder’s glove, the response was confusion, uncertainty and a question.

“Why?� Donovan said.

He wasn’t the only one.

In an unscripted and unusual twist, Pages went from catching the first inning of a shutout one minute to playing second base the next, and — like the flap of a butterfly wing stirring up winds a world away — his willingness to play a position he never had before put a series of events in motion that led to the Cardinals’ victory.

It started when spasms rippled through shortstop Masyn Winn’s lower back and forced him from the game after the first inning. The Cardinals did not want to lose their designated hitter that early, so Donovan was out as a replacement option. That put Thomas Saggese at short and left his position, second, open. Pages hopped out of his catching gear, grabbed Donovan’s glove, and took over at second — and backup Yohel Pozo moved into the spotlight. He put on the mask to catch and moved into Winn’s No. 9 spot in the lineup. With Pages at second the game pivoted. Off the bench and in that specific lineup spot, Pozo drove in one run and scored the game’s only other run in a 2-0 victory against the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium.

“They were thinking about letting (starter Andre) Pallante hit, and I knew Pallante didn’t want to hit, so I kind of just said, ‘Hey, I’ll play second,’� Pages said. “They said, ‘You can?’ And I said, ‘Yeah. I’ll just put my chest in front of it and throw to first.’�

He went to the field with a magnet and the third out of the first inning of his career at second came bounding toward him.

Pages completed that play and another without issue.

He finished with two assists on Pallante’s 11 groundouts, two more for the game than 10-time Gold Glove winner Nolan Arenado.

A teammate called Pages “Pedro Wong� after the Cardinals’ former second baseman and Gold Glove-award winner, Kolten Wong.

“He’s eligible at Gold Glove utility now,� said another teammate.

The severity of Winn’s injury and length of his absence was still being determined late Friday night at Busch Stadium. Winn, still clearly in discomfort, told the team’s trainers and a few reporters that he would not be going on the injured list. That decision is not entirely his to make. The lower back pain that bothered him early last season returned over the past week, and he confided in teammate Jordan Walker on Friday that it was worse than before. He attempted to play through it only to have a jarring play in the first inning cause the lower back to rage.

“I let them know I’m not going on the IL,� Winn said. “It’s going to be a couple of days before I’m back in there, but I’ll be back in there soon.�

With Winn out after the first inning, the Cardinals had to make a tricky call. By putting Donovan at DH for the game, moving him to the field would force Pallante into the game to hit. Manager Oliver Marmol said that wasn’t appealing because Pallante was in the midst of throwing seven scoreless innings and holding a feisty Phillies lineup to two hits. Pallante also had never taken an at-bat as a pro, and after the game the right-hander guessed that his last at-bat was maybe as a sophomore in high school or at some alumni game.

He took batting practice as a professional ballplayer once, went to a knee trying to launch a ball into orbit, and had a pitching coach tell him, yeah, no more at-bats.

“I’m definitely not going up there and taking,� he said. “I’ll tell you that.�

The coaches wanted to avoid him going up there at all.

“It wasn’t ideal,� Marmol said. “We were trying to figure out what was our best move there in order to keep Pallante focused on just pitching and not having to stand in the box and take two at-bats. Pages said he’d played there before in a previous life, and we went with it.�

When Donovan spotted Pozo putting on his catcher’s gear, the question about his glove made sense, and he offered Pages whatever he needed. Pallante spotted Pozo gearing up and thought Pages had been injured. He did not realize his catcher was now his second baseman until the throwdown to second base at the end of his warmups for the second inning. Pallante turned to get the ball back from the fielders and saw Pages at second base.

“Oh,� Pallante recalled thinking.

The move was not without its challenges, nor Pages’ missteps.

Pages kept the PitchCom earpiece in his hat — which is permitted for limited fielders — and took over telling first baseman Alec Burleson what pitches were coming. But he was either “too loud or too late or too early� telling Burleson a few times. At least once, he told Burleson what the next pitch was loud enough for the Phillies’ first-base coach to hear. Burleson gave him grace, and after the game reminded a gathered group of media how Pages takes groundballs with the infielders regularly, as catchers like Yadier Molina did before him.

Pages played four innings in the field, and it was the first time he had to use a positioning card. The pocket-sized card uses a number line — positives to one direction, negatives to the other — to tell infielders whether to move to their left or right based on the hitter.

“I didn’t know what it means,� Pages said.

He relied on coach Stubby Clapp to translate.

Pozo, meanwhile, had to decode on his own.

Added to the roster in the past week due to Ivan Herrera’s bone bruise, Pozo had yet to catch Pallante in a game, and he had limited exposure to the pitchers in spring training. The backup catcher caught one inning before huddling with Pallante in the dugout to take a cram course on the game plan.

“He was calling some pitches that I definitely don’t do,� Pallante said. “I can imagine what Pedro was doing when he heard them.�

What Pedro was doing was making the plays asked of him.

What Pozo did was deliver the hit the Cardinals needed from anyone.

Pozo’s RBI double in the fifth inning scored Saggese and gave the Cardinals their first earned run in 20 innings. They had been 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position in the game, and they were about to leave the bases loaded to end the fifth inning. Sandwiched between that, though, Pozo also scored on Burleson’s bases-loaded walk for the 2-0 lead. The inning ended when Pages flew out — and the fortuitous turn of the lineup continued for the Cardinals.

Pages making the final out of the same inning when the Cardinals took a lead meant Marmol should shift to a better defensive set up and lose the DH without Pallante batting anymore than once, if at all. Donovan moved to second and got his glove back — the one with the golden patch that Rawlings puts only on the gloves of Gold Glove winners. When Donovan had his glove restitched by Rawlings, they returned it with the brand new gold patch on it, and that is what Pages was looking at when he flexed and shifted the glove on his hand at second for the first time.

“I’m a gold glover apparently now,� Pages said. “I’ll take that.�