ST. LOUIS – A dying clock and the fear of striking out caused a panicked Willson Contreras to do something that he instantly regretted in the bottom of the third inning of the Cardinals’ 5-1 win over the Twins on Saturday.

After noticing the grip tape unravelling near the knob of his bat before a 3-2 pitch, Contreras used his teeth to unroll it and tear it off. Because he had already used his one allowable timeout and the pitch timer was at 11 seconds – and he needed to be in the box and alert with eight seconds remaining or risk an automatic strike call – Contreras hurriedly wadded up the tape and put it in his mouth instead of his back pocket.

Instantly, the slugger knew that was a bad decision – and it had nothing to do with him swinging and missing at the next pitch for a strikeout.

“That was a bad taste, really bad,” Contreras said with a laugh. “I don’t try to put [pine tar or sticky spray] on my [bat], but it was disgusting. It was a bad taste.”

Contreras said it was the first time – and hopefully the last time – that he ever puts bat tape in his mouth. What made the moment even worse, he said, was the result of the at-bat. The whole experience ultimately left a bad taste in his mouth.

“With this clock, you have to do things that are out of your control, and I had to do that instead of striking out,” Contreras said. “Well, I struck out anyways, but I’d rather strike out swinging rather than by the clock.

“I don’t think [chewing the tape] was a bad thing to do, but I was just running out of time. I had no time.”

Contreras, who was the Cardinals' top hitter in Spring Training, is hitless in nine at-bats with five strikeouts in the first two games of the season. He shuddered to think what might have happened had the at-bat gone differently when he was chewing on the unsavory tape.

“Oh man, if I hit a homer on that, I’m doing it every time,” Contreras joked. “I didn’t even know that it was on TV, and I had totally forgotten about it. I was literally watching the clock … 11, 10 seconds and I was like, ‘Bro, get ready to hit!’ That’s what happened.”