Mistakes Cost the Brewers: MIL 5, STL 6

For a while it seemed as though a botched rundown was going to be the story of this game. Zach Davies was able to keep the Cardinals off the board through the first three innings. Then in the fourth he allowed two runners to reach base. Then Jhonny Peralta grounded to third base. Jonathan Villar threw to Martin Maldonado which began the rundown. They should have been able to tag out Stephen Piscotty, but instead Maldonado tried to run down Piscotty himself. Unsurprisingly, he was unable to do so. Had he thrown to Villar it’s very likely they’d have secured the out. Instead, two batters later a sac fly drove in the first run of the game. Outside of that the “only” trouble Davies ran into were two solo home runs from Jedd Gyorko and Kolton Wong.

The Brewers would wait until the sixth inning to answer back. Jonathan Villar led off with a double. Scooter Gennett followed up with a single giving the Brewers a run. The Brewers second run of the game came an inning later with a solo home run by Orlando Arcia, his second MLB home run. He pulled it into the Brewers dugout. This would bring the Brewers to within a run of the Cardinals.

In the same inning Maldonado would make his way over to third after he drew a walk and the pinch hitting Domingo Santana lined a single to right. Villar tied the game with an unfortunate ground rule double. I say unfortunate because there’s a good chance Santana could’ve scored had it not bounced out. The ball hit the angled wall out in center field and looked like it could have gotten away from the fielder long enough for the runner to score. I didn’t matter too much though, as Gennett followed up with an infield single to score Santana. One more run would score as Hernan Perez drew a bases loaded walk.

The Brewers walked out of the seventh inning with a 5-3 lead. Unfortunately that would not last long. Corey Knebel gave up a 2 run home run the very next inning. Despite running into a bit more trouble that inning, Knebel would not allow another run. Yet the damage was already done.

Things continued to go badly for Brewers relief in the ninth. Tyler Thornburg allowed the first two batters to reach base. It looked like the Brewers were going to get lucky as Yadier Molina grounded directly to third. Villar tagged the base for the force out and attempted to secure the double play at first. Unfortunately the throw was a poor one and Stephen Piscotty was able to score from second. That’s all the Cardinals would get, but that’s all they’d need. Seung Hwan Oh proceeded to take the mound and earn his 14th save of the season.

Tomorrow’s game features a match-up between Wily Peralta and Adam Wainwright. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 pm CT.

Brewers Pitchers: Zach Davies (6.1 IP), Tyler Cravy (0.2 IP). Corey Knebel (1.0 IP), Tyler Thornburg (1.0 IP)
Cardinals Pitchers: Carlos Martinez (6.0 IP), Matt Bowman (0.1 IP), Kevin Siegrist (0.0 IP), Miguel Socolovich (1.2 IP), Seung Hwan Oh (1.0 IP)

HR: Jedd Gyorko (23), Kolton Wong (3)
SV: Seung Hwan Oh (14)

Boxscore
WPA Chart