Brewers almost come back, lose to Cardinals 6-5

W: Jake Westbrook (2-1)
L: Wily Peralta (2-2)
S: Edward Mujica (7)

MVP: Norichika Aoki (+.150 WPA)
LVP: Wily Peralta (-.326 WPA)

Win Expectancy Graph / Box Score

The Brewers went up against Jake Westbrook tonight and were lucky to score the run they did. The problem with the Brewers, today, was Wily Peralta's third inning. Peralta gave up no extra-base hits to the Cardinals but all they needed was a hit batter and five 2-out singles with runners on to score all the runs they would score tonight. Alfredo Figaro, Tom Gorzelanny and Burke Badenhop were nearly perfect to finish up. Figaro gave up one single and no other Cardinals reached base after.

After Westbrook was pulled after 6 despite doing well (but with a pitch count of 96) the Cards were forced to make do with their struggling bullpen. And struggle it did, first with Joe Kelly, then with Mitchell Boggs walking two in a row, including walking a run in. Logan Schafer's speed came into play in this inning, pinch-hitting to lead off the inning and outracing the throw from shortstop for an infield hit.

Trevor Rosenthal then came in. The game appeared to be at the mercy of Rosenthal's high-90s fastball (he got as high as 99 tonight against Jean Segura) but unfortunately for the Cardinals, they were at the mercy of Daniel Descalso's fielding. He misfielded a ball that could have been an inning-ending double play; instead it put runners into scoring position where Ryan Braun hit a single scoring the 4th Brewers run of the game.

New Cards closer Edward Mujica also had defensive issues with the men behind him; not with errors, but with positioning that was intended to eliminate extra-base hits but did not eliminate singles to the shallow outfield. Carlos Gomez also stole a base which allowed him to score on one of these shallow outfield singles. Sadly, that wasn't enough.