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There were swings to take in the batting cage.

There was video to watch AND treatment to receive, and someone pledged $1,000 to whoever could eat the highest number of the visitors clubhouse’s famed cheesesteaks (minimum to qualify: six). The Cardinals had just lost a game for the first time in more than a week — and not much else. Certainly not their vibe.

“Even right now in there are guys nodding like, ‘That’s the way you’re supposed to play the damn game,’� manager Oliver Marmol said outside the clubhouse between games. “You’re going to lose some. But that’s the way you want it to look like. The other team just has to find a way to beat you.�

A few hours later, that same clubhouse was filled with cheers, applause, some laughs and presumably one teammate with a full stomach and fuller wallet. They not only found another way to beat the Phillies — they took an early bruising and shoved back.

Hard.

Down by four runs after the Phillies’ five-run first inning, the Cardinals flexed for a season-high 19 hits and roared to a 14-7 victory Wednesday night to split the doubleheader in South Philly. The Cardinals have won 10 of their past 11 games as they head into Kansas City and Wednesday night showed a new and muscular way for them to win: a slugfest.

Lars Nootbaar, Masyn Winn and Alec Burleson all hit home runs. Winn tied a career high with four hits. Burleson, on his way to four RBIs, gave the Cardinals the lead in the third inning with a homer and helped take it back for good in the fifth inning with a single off a lefty brought in specifically to neutralize him.

“We made a statement, for sure,� Burleson said.

“This is kind of what we believe this team could be,� said starter Erick Fedde, who ran his personal scoreless streak to 14 2/3 innings in the first game of the doubleheader, a 2-1 loss. “It’s one thing to believe something. It’s another to go out and do it. We’re playing competitive ball. I know it’s still early. But nobody wants at this point to be 10 games out and feel like it’s a long ways away.�

With their recent nine-game winning streak and Wednesday night’s thunderous rally, the Cardinals (24-20) closed the gap in the National League Central to one game. They’ve shot from five games below .500 to a season-best four games over. They pivoted from winning only two of their first 14 road games to winning seven of their past nine. The Cardinals haven’t lost a series in three weeks.

After schooling the Washington Nationals, they went into a ballpark so packed, so vibrant, so primed for contention and so loud it was difficult for hitters to hear both dugouts complaining about the strike zone Wednesday night — and won two of three against the Phillies.

“That we can play,� Sonny Gray said when asked what he learned from his team over the past 11 games. “It doesn’t matter who is on the other side. That we can play. We can compete with anybody.�

During the nine-game winning streak, the Cardinals demonstrated how they can win with a superb defense. They got four consecutive seven-inning starts and five consecutive wins for the rotation to show how they can win with starters. They limited opponents to two runs or fewer in seven consecutive games with that pitching. They’ve hit .281 in the past 11 games, slugged .441. They won with situational hitting one day, speed the next and a pivotal relief outing from Kyle Leahy on Monday.

When the Phillies scored two runs on Steven Matz in the afternoon game Wednesday, it was the first time in 23 innings a Cardinals reliever had allowed a run. Willson Contreras has a streak of 26 consecutive games reaching base, and his 10 RBIs in the past 11 days are the second-most in the National League.

“You have all facets of the game clicking together,� Burleson said.

And then when one facet chipped and provided a clunker, a completely new one had to emerge.

The Phillies thumped Gray for five runs in the first inning Wednesday night. Each time the Cardinals took a lead, the Phillies erased it, matched it or nibbled into it against Gray. The Cardinals’ No. 1 starter did not freeze any of the three leads he inherited. After Burleson’s homer in the third created a 6-5 lead, Gray allowed a game-tying homer on his second pitch of the third inning. Burleson’s two-run single widened the lead to three runs in the fourth inning, and Gray allowed a solo homer on his first pitch in the bottom of that inning. The seven runs Gray allowed were his most as a Cardinal.

Yet the climate in the dugout even down 5-1 suddenly was a lot like what Marmol described in the clubhouse between games.

“Zero panic,� the manager said.

“You get punched in the mouth early, it’s not ideal,� Burleson said. “In the first inning, there is a lot of game left to play. It was like, ‘We’ve got some work to do.’ Let’s chip away at this thing. Obviously, we chipped away at it with a big inning. Continued to add on and pour on. It could have been easy to kind of lay down today and in the sense losing a tough one in the first (game) and maybe having an off-day and everybody is trying to get there. Nobody was doing that.�

Nootbaar sparked the rally by leading off the third inning against Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola with a solo homer. Nola walked Winn, and he scored from first on Brendan Donovan’s double. Donovan scored on a groundout followed by Ivan Herrera’s single. Burleson yanked the Cardinals back ahead, 6-5, with a 404-foot, two-run homer. The mix of patience and power continued in the fourth. Winn reclaimed the lead with a solo homer.

The Cardinals also got four consecutive singles to widen the lead.

They added on again in the eighth and ninth innings with a jambalaya of offense. They scored a run on a wild pitch. A fly ball dropped in center field by the suddenly sloppy Phillies led to other runs. Winn laced an RBI single. Victor Scott II stole two bases.

“The versatility in how we can score,� Marmol said. “It took a little bit of everything and a little bit from everybody.�

Between games Wednesday, Marmol described how “every pitch, every inning feels like a playoff game right now.� The Cardinals’ crisp, preferred style of play isn’t different from when they lost four consecutive to the Mets in Queens, but the results have been, and those have amplified what the Cardinals must do well and do consistently to win. Wednesday’s deluge was the outlier, but beneath it was exactly the kind of playoff-style performance Marmol mentioned.

Lefty John King relieved Gray in the fourth inning with a runner on base and promptly got a ground ball from former MVP Bryce Harper. King’s cooling of the Phillies in the fourth, and part of the fifth was the first stop of the game for the Cardinals.

The Phillies never started again.

The Cardinals bullpen pitched 5 1/3 scoreless and allowed only two hits. Chris Roycroft (1-2) earned the win with a 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief — and he did that as the leader late Wednesday in cheesesteaks eaten for the series. The same day the Cardinals bullpen had a streak of scoreless innings end, it started a new one before heading to Kansas City to close the road trip with a weekend against the Royals and their 16-win home record, the second-best in the American League.

The bullpen did like Fedde suggested the team would after the Phillies squelched the nine-game winning streak. Asked Fedde: “Why not start another one right now?�

“I don’t see them taking their foot off the pedal,� Marmol said.

“I think we showed a little bit of everything,� Winn added. “The pitching has been amazing. The hitting has been great — very timely. Winning close ball games. Blowing teams out. We’re kind of showing everything right now.�