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NEW YORK — Wise to the fact the New York Mets would likely let the trumpets catch their breath for an evening and not cue the fanfare for closer Edwin Diaz or either of their lockdown, late-inning relievers, the Cardinals had a plan. The night New York rested its best from the bullpen, the Cardinals aimed to be aggressive with their relievers, if possible.

They had them ready.

They had their assignments.

They had available arms for Saturday.

All they lacked was the most important thing they needed.

The lead.

An early two-run lead cobbled together out of five singles vanished from the Cardinals in the middle innings, and by the time they got their bullpen engaged they were holding tight to a tie or chasing from a deficit. A seesaw game that Brendan Donovan tied with a leadoff homer in the top off the ninth ended with Francisco Lindor’s walk-off homer to lead off the bottom of the ninth. Lindor drilled an errant cutter from Ryan Fernandez for a 5-4 victory at Citi Field, and finalized a box score rich with material to mine. There was a walk that offset an assignment, an error that effectively erased a dynamic defensive play, and there was the cutter crushed by Lindor. Any of those moments were part of the clockwork that led to a loss.

Where the discussions begin is how the Cardinals wanted to engineer the game’s end with an urgent use of a bullpen that understaffed by one arm.

“You can be aggressive with the ‘pen on a day like today and try to snatch a win,� manager Oliver Marmol said late Friday night in his office. “Knowing they had both of their eighth and ninth inning guys down … see what happens when we’re able to tie it up. You can be aggressive and you try to keep the score for as long as possible, hoping you can take the lead and then (Ryan) Helsley has the ninth. Unfortunately, it was tied at that point.�

The roots of the Cardinals’ intent to “be aggressive� with their relief use reach back to Thursday night’s game and the Cardinals holding fast for a close game. With no late ruptures, the Cardinals held the Mets to a three-run lead and that brought Diaz and setup lefty A.J. Minter into the game. Both had pitched an inning the night before, effectively ruling them out for Friday.

The Cardinals felt that would give them better matchups in the late innings, and they got one when Donovan greeted Huascar Brazoban with a homer to tie the game, 4-4, in the ninth.

“The thing is everybody has good stuff and everybody is throwing with conviction,� Donovan said. “How can we execute our game plan? Try to take the name out of it. Look at the stuff. What does he throw? Where does he like to throw it? Where do we want to get it and where do we want to hit it? What’s the stuff and how do I attack it?�

What that late innings also meant for Marmol and his staff was a chance to reverse-engineer the game from Helsley to close it all the way into the fifth inning where John King would be available to hold it.

He would enter the game to set up lefty JoJo Romero later in the game.

Starter Miles Mikolas held the Mets scoreless through four innings. In the fifth, the raucous started. Brett Baty led off with a double, and he scored when No. 9 hitter Tyrone Taylor connected for a trip that skipped past center fielder Michael Siani. Juan Soto delivered the RBI single to tie the game, 2-2, and that was the first inflection point of the evening. The Cardinals stayed with Mikolas to face the left-handed-hitting Soto instead of going to King. The goal was to get Mikolas through the fifth because, as Marmol said, “every out is important.�

Soto is an equal opportunity superstar with the eagerness to pounce pitchers from either side of the mound. He had a .550 slugging percentage against lefties this past season and a .578 slugging percentage against right-handers with Aaron Judge looming their behind him. Going to King might have kept Soto on the ground, but it invited the matchup the Cardinals did not want – King vs. right-handed batter Pete Alonso.

Sticking with Mikolas through Alonso also meant using Romero at a spot in the seventh that would prove valuable to dictate the Mets’ choices.

So Mikolas got Soto and gave up the RBI single.

Mikolas retired, and in came King to finish the fifth vs. Jesse Winker.

“King is a headache for lefties,� Mikolas said. “That lefty on lefty with his sinker.�

That inning was also where the current depth of the Cardinals’ bullpen surfaced. With Steven Matz in the rotation, the lefty wasn’t the eighth member of the bullpen to pitch that inning. Limited to 13 pitchers on the active roster, the Cardinals move to a six-man rotations means, by rule, only seven pitchers are available in relief.

While they planned to be aggressive assignments, they wanted to be judicious with use.

“You try to stop the bleeding quickly and then use your guys appropriately,� Marmol said. “You can be aggressive on a day like today knowing that you’re going to have a shot at the end with their best guys not being able to pitch.�

Rather than have King return for the sixth, Marmol called on right-hander Kyle Leahy for the back half of the Mets’ lineup. Leahy in that spot – or “lane,� as Marmol calls them – would set up Romero when the leadoff spot came back around. The Cardinals had just retaken the lead on Nolan Arenado’s RBI single to score Willson Contreras. The bullpen had a lead to hold – until it didn’t. As quickly as Arenado claimed it, the Mets overcame it. Leahy allowed a leadoff homer in the sixth to the first batter he faced – Mark Vientos – and that leveled the game, 3-3.

Leahy got the game to Romero in the seventh, but not the lead.

Saving the lefty Romero for that inning meant he could enter to face Lindor, then face Soto, and then give the Cardinals the chance to dictate who hit cleanup for the Mets. By design, Romero’s three-batter minimum would be over by the cleanup spot, so if the Mets opted to lift Jesse Winker for a better matchup against the lefty Romero the Cardinals would counter with a right-handed reliever.

Romero walked two Mets to continue to the unraveling of the plan.

Romero’s walks brought right-hander Phil Maton into the game an inning early for one out more than planned. He did the right-handed pinch-hitter when Sterling Martin pinch-hit for Winker, and Maton retired him to end the seventh.

Arenado’s deft play to recover and tag out a pinch-runner who slipped past the bag gave Maton a grasp on the eighth. That was before a pickoff throw slipped away from him. The error allowed a runner into scoring position shortly after Arenado’s play had retired a runner at third. Brandon Nimmo scored easy for a 4-3 lead on Luis Torrens’ double off Maton.

“We did everything possible to get to that point while keeping the score,� Marmol said.

Seven innings after he extended his hitting streak to 14 consecutive games, Donovan yanked the Cardinals back into Friday night’s game when he tagged Brazoban’s changeup for his third homer of the season. The Cardinals had close Helsley loosening but as the road team the only place for him in the ninth was if they had a lead. With no save to secure, they would hold Helsley for extra innings on the road and the need to have him close there. All they needed was the one thing they had not had since the fifth – a lead. That thrust Fernandez into the bottom of the ninth.

He made three pitches, and Lindor created a souvenir of the third.

“You want the lead and you want Helsley in the ninth,� Marmol said. “We needed one more.�