Cardinals beat Brewers, 6-3, in series finale

The Brewers came into today’s game with the Cardinals with a chance to sweep and go 5-1 on the year against their NL Central rivals. Things didn’t quite work out. The top of the first looked so good for starting pitcher Corbin Burnes. He made Matt Carpenter and Paul Goldschmidt look ordinary in their first at-bats. Leading off the top of the second, Marcell Ozuna flailed at two pitches out of the zone. Unfortunately as Burnes has been apt to do this year, after throwing two wicked pitches to get ahead, he offers Ozuna a meatball that the Cardinals’ outfielder deposited into the seats in left. The Cardinals would go on to score another run in the inning to put the Brewers behind early, 2-0.

In the top of third, St. Louis tacked on two more runs. Paul Goldschmidt led off the inning with a double and eventually scored on a Paul DeJong single. Burnes did get Jose Martinez to hit into a double play, but he later gave up an RBI single to Kolten Wong to score DeJong.

In the top of the fourth, Burnes gave up the second homer of the game to Matt Carpenter to make the score 5-0. Luckily, he didn’t give up another one. If he had, Burnes would have been the first pitcher in the history of the game to give up 3+ home runs in four consecutive starts. Aaron Wilkerson replaced him with one out in the top of the fourth.

The Brewers did get on the board in the bottom of the fifth. Orlando Arcia singled, and that was followed by a 2-run homer by Aaron Wilkerson. These Brewers’ hitters sure know how to hit. To that point in the game, Michael Wacha had been cruising. He ended the day with six innings pitched giving up just the two runs.

The Cardinals did score one more run in the game in the top of the eighth off Wilkerson to make the score 6-2. Matt Wieters singled in Wong. That was the impetus to replace the recent call up who pitched four innings giving up the one run and striking out three.

Jeremy Jeffress replaced Wilkerson for his first appearance of the 2019 season. Jeffress faced Jedd Gyorko with a runner on first. Jeffress struck Gyorko out, and Yasmani Grandal subsequently threw out Wieters trying to steal to end the eighth.

The Brewers would score one more run in the bottom of the eighth. Hernan Perez led the inning off with a double. The Cardinals pitched to Christian Yelich again, and he burned them again. He did it with just an RBI single to score Perez. That would prove to be the end of scoring by both teams, and the Cardinals avoided the sweep, winning 6-3.

The Brewers continue their home stand with the Los Angeles Dodgers coming to town tomorrow. The Dodgers send Julio Urias to the mound, while the Brewers will send out Zach Davies. First pitch is at 6:10 CST. The game can be heard on WTMJ and seen on Fox Sports Wisconsin as well as the MLB Network.