Cain, Grandal, and Yelich lift off as the Brewers beat the Cardinals 8-4

Tonight’s game went well for the Milwaukee Brewers. Christian Yelich hit another 3-run homer. Lorenzo Cain and Yasmani Grandal went deep too. Brandon Woodruff continued to demonstrate proficiency with the bat, and he pitched well on top of that. He was even able to avoid shaming from PETA by missing as opposed hitting the passing bird (a la Randy Johnson).

The first two innings of this game were fairly uneventful until the Brewers pulled off a dazzling defensive gem. With Jose Martinez on first, Yadier Molina hit a ball up the middle. Mike Moustakas dove to his right to make the stop, glove flipped to Arcia, who did a pirouette to position himself to throw out Molina to finish the double play.

The Brewers got the scoring started in the top of the third when Lorenzo Cain crushed a hanging breaking pitch into the left field stands to make it 1-0. Later in the inning, Ryan Braun hit a dribbler that went under Matt Carpenter’s glove, over the third base bag, and into left field. The official scorer credited him with a double.

After a Moustakas strike out, Yasmani Grandal took Flaherty deep for the second home run of the inning, making the score 3-0. Travis Shaw and Jesus Aguilar followed with singles, and Orlando Arica drew a walk. Then Babe...I mean Brandon Woodruff came to the plate, and he doubled down the line, scoring Shaw and Aguilar. With 75, mostly stress pitches, and facing all nine hitters in the inning, manager Mike Shildt took his young pitcher out of the game. At the end of three innings, the score was 5-0 Brew Crew.

The bottom of the fifth was another nice inning for the Brew Crew. Orlando Arcia singled to right, and that was later followed by LoCain singling to right. Mike Shildt next did something that was just plain wrong. With two runners on base and Mr. Christian Yelich ready to stroll to the plate, he changed pitchers. The pitcher he sent to face Yelich was Ryan Helsley, and this poor kid was making his MLB debut. The outcome of the matchup just seems obvious in retrospect and probably could have been foreseen to be honest. Yelich took this kid deep for another 3-run homer against the Cardinals. Result: 8-0 Brewers after five.

Brandon Woodruff was cruising through this game over the first five innings, In the sixth, he ran into a little trouble. He walked Paul DeJong. Marcell Ozuna followed with a two-run shot down the left field line to get the Cardinals on the board. He later gave up singles to Molina and Dexter Fowler resulting in Craig Counsell replacing Woodruff with Chase Anderson. Anderson was able to end the threat by striking out Kolten Wong on three pitches. Woodruff’s line looked pretty good. He gave up two runs on seven hits while pitching 5.2 innings, striking out six.

Alex Wilson took over the eighth, and he threw a few sliders that looked devastating. Unfortunately he was a bit wild and a bit straight with his fastball. Yairo Munoz doubled on a dribbler past Jesus Aguilar. Wilson then bounced a pitch in the dirt that got by Grandal that sent Munoz to third. Wilson walked Ozuna to make it first and third. Later Yadier Molina singled to score Munoz, and Kolten Wong singled to score Ozuna. After the top of the eighth, the Cardinals were making a game out of it, 8-4.

Fortunately for the Brewers, Alex Claudio was able to close out St. Louis in the ninth, and the Brewers get their twelve win of the season. The Brewers will go for the sweep tomorrow afternoon. First pitch is scheduled for 12:40 CST. Michael Wacha takes the mound for St. Louis. Corbin Burnes goes for Milwaukee. The game can be seen on Fox Sports Wisconsin and heard on WTMJ.