ST. LOUIS – This time the Dodgers’ humiliation at Busch Stadium came with a side of outrage.

Right-hander John Lackey held them to five hits and nine strikeouts in the first seven innings as the Dodgers were shut out for the fourth time in their past 10 games, losing to the Cardinals 3-0 Friday night.

The best road team in baseball over the past two seasons (94-68), the Dodgers’ act has not traveled as well this season. They are 7-12 away from home and Friday’s shutout extended a scoreless run on the road to 37 innings, stretching back through their three-game sweep in San Francisco. The Dodgers haven’t scored a run in their road grays since May 10 in Colorado.

That slide allowed the Giants to move a half-game up on the Dodgers with their win over the Atlanta Braves Friday, dropping the Dodgers into second place for the first time since April 16.

Frustration with the offensive shortcomings or their painful recent history against the Cardinals found a target in home plate umpire Mike Winters. Five of the Dodgers’ 11 strikeouts came on called third strikes.

The Dodgers’ displeasure with Winters’ strike zone bubbled over and resulted in the ejections of Dodgers manager Don Mattingly and catcher A.J. Ellis in the seventh inning. Mattingly was tossed after a called third strike on Andre Ethier helped defuse the Dodgers’ only scoring opportunity in the top of the seventh.

“It’s not worth talking about that. That’s just part of it,” Mattingly said. “You never win with that argument. At the end of the day, you’re wasting your time.

“We didn’t really do enough to win. So for us to sit here and complain about the strike zone doesn’t do us a lot of good.”

But it got personal for Ellis in the bottom of the seventh inning. After J.P. Howell walked Matt Carpenter, Winters ejected Ellis. Later, Ellis acknowledged that Winters – who also got barked at by Lackey early in the game – had criticized his framing of pitches.

Winters could not have picked a hotter button to push with Ellis. He finds himself one of the lowest-ranking catchers in baseball in the new pitch-framing statistics – playing for an organization now run by a front office that places a lot of stock in that metric.

“Their job is to call balls and strikes,” Ellis said. “It’s not their job to be a catching coach behind the plate. It’s not their job to be critical of what I’m doing. It shouldn’t even matter if there’s a catcher there or not. The ball comes through a zone and they need to take a look at that.

“People on blogs and websites can critique my framing but I’m not going to take it from an umpire because it’s not their job to do that. It’s their job to call balls and strikes based on what comes through a strike zone.”

Winters was asked to respond but declined to speak to a pool reporter. He said only through a Cardinals official that the issue was balls and strikes and “the rest of it stays private.”

Not entirely. Winters was apparently wearing a microphone for MLB Network during the game.

“I had a rough game. Mike had a rough game,” Ellis said. “We were both out there doing our jobs, trying to work as hard as we can. But sometimes even when you’re trying to do your best you still don’t do a good job.

“It just felt like the borderline pitches were going every which direction. There wasn’t really a way to feel like anything was established. Sometimes that’s the toughest strike zone to play with. If a guy is constantly giving the low pitch or the away pitch and he doesn’t change over the course of the game, you have to make the adjustment as a player. But when it’s back and forth and you’re not really sure along the edges what the outcome is going to be it makes it tough to catch and hit.”

The Dodgers certainly found it tough to hit, a common occurrence lately. They got little going against Lackey and went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position when they did. Even with their brief offensive revival at home, the Dodgers are batting .177 (11 for 62) with runners in scoring position over their past 12 games – a stretch that has seen them average 2.08 runs per game.

“I think we’ve definitely … had some games where we had trouble scoring, it seems like,” Mattingly said. “I don’t know if we’ve gotten spoiled from early on where we put runs, runs, runs. I don’t think any of us expected that to continue. But I do think we’ve had a little bit of a lull scoring runs.”

Contact the writer: bplunkett@ocregister.com