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The stretch of three consecutive quality starts Cardinals starter Erick Fedde kicked off with six no-hit innings on April 9 came to a halt Sunday at Busch Stadium against the Brewers.

Signs brewed in his first inning of work.

With his team in a position to complete a three-game series sweep of their National League Central Division rivals, the right-handed Fedde began his afternoon outing by issuing walks to two of the first three batters he faced. The free passes led to a three-run inning that put the Cardinals in a deficit that grew to 7-0 when Fedde allowed four runs in the fourth inning of a 7-1 loss to Milwaukee.

“Consistency is really important, but just having starts where, as a starter, you lose the game, it almost feels like, those are tough,” said Fedde, who has logged four quality starts this season. “The other four have been pretty good, but it’s got to be more of when I’m bad, still giving the team a chance to really win the game.”

The Cardinals’ lone run came in the fifth inning on a double from Brendan Donovan that scored Lars Nootbaar. The Cardinals (12-16) were held to one run on five hits and struck out six times, five of which were looking, against Brewers starter Jose Quintana. Brewers relievers Grant Anderson, Nick Mears and Jared Koenig combined to keep Cardinals hitters to two hits and two walks in the final three innings.

Of the 10 hits Fedde allowed to the Brewers, eight were singles. Two of those were hammered into the ground. One had an exit velocity of 69.1 mph, per Statcast.

During the four-run fourth inning, one of the run-producing singles did not leave the infield, and two found holes to get by Cardinals infielders. The run-scoring singles in that frame from Brice Turang and Christian Yelich came on the first pitches of their at-bats against Fedde.

“It was definitely aggressive,” Fedde said of the Brewers’ approach in the fourth inning. “That was one of those ones where you just blinked and it felt like it happened really quick. When you’re a guy who gives up lots of ground balls, sometimes that just happens.”

Before his exit, Fedde threw a season-high 103 pitches. His ERA jumped from 3.33 to 4.68 following the start.

Fedde was lifted from the series finale with two outs in the sixth inning and with Jackson Chourio standing on second base after he doubled. JoJo Romero (2/3 of an inning), rookie Matt Svanson (1 2/3 innings) and John King (one inning) combined to keep the Brewers scoreless in relief of Fedde.

“It would have been really tough today with where our bullpen was if he (Fedde) gave us three innings,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “He continued to battle. I know he gave up that four spot but went back out there. I appreciated the fact that he dug down deep and was able to still get us 100 pitches and get us as many outs as possible in order for us to use the ’pen in the way we did, to still be fresh for tomorrow.”

The 32-year-old Fedde entered the start with a whiff rate of 18% — a mark that puts him in the bottom 6% of qualified MLB pitchers, per Statcast. Through six starts, Fedde has generated a whiff rate above 18% once. That came on April 9 in Pittsburgh, when he completed six no-hit innings against the Pirates and had a 35% rate of swings and misses.

Against the Brewers, Fedde had eight swings and misses for a 16% whiff rate. Fedde’s sweeper was responsible for five of the eight swings and misses he got. Fedde said his sweeper began to “feel a little better today.” The 32-year-old noted that he is “going to be more aggressive” in hopes of missing more bats.

“Overall, I thought his stuff (Fedde’s) was OK,” Marmol said. “Could pitch to chase a little bit more, but at the end of the day, a lot of ball in and play, and a lot of it found holes.”

Although the two walks in the first inning were the only two he allowed Sunday, Fedde has issued 16 walks and struck out 17 batters across 32 2/3 innings. Fedde’s issues with walks have led him to a 4.41 walks per nine innings rate that is his highest since he broke into the majors in 2017.

At the start of Sunday, 11 of his 14 walks came in full counts. He added a 15th full-count walk in the first inning when a 3-2 sweeper to Yelich missed the zone. Fedde began that at-bat vs. Yelich by falling behind 3-0 before his next two pitches were strikes.

The walk to Yelich was followed by RBI singles from William Contreras, Sal Frelick and Rhys Hoskins.

Fedde allowed one hit across scoreless innings in the second and third before Isaac Collins opened the four-run fourth inning with a ground-ball single that bounced before it got beyond the pitcher’s mound and skipped into center field, out of the reach of a diving Masyn Winn.

“It’s frustrating, but I try to look at it as if you make a better pitch, they don’t hit it as hard (and) it doesn’t find its way through,” Fedde said of the frequent ground balls leading to singles. “You don’t have a guy on first. Maybe people are back having more space to field the ball. It’s just one of those things where I look at it as my own problem and something that can be fixed, and not to look at it as just bad luck.”