No giant leap, but a small step forward
After Game 1 loss, Braun lifts Milwaukee in nightcap
With five games at home against the St. Louis Cardinals in three days, the Milwaukee Brewers hoped to take a big leap forward in the National League playoff race.
Instead, they had to settle for a baby step.
The Brewers and Cardinals split a doubleheader for the second time in the series Wednesday night. After Adam Wainwright pitched St. Louis to a 4-2 victory in the opener, the Brewers came back to take the nightcap, 6-0, scoring four times in the first inning and watching a bullpen foursome combine for the two-hit shutout.
By taking three of the five games, including an 18-3 pummeling the previous evening, the Brewers gained a game on the Cardinals, who had been two games up and alone in second place in the NL Central. But Cincinnati took three in a row from Pittsburgh in the meantime, inching one percentage point ahead of St. Louis.
The Brewers still control their own destiny in claiming second place and a guaranteed playoff berth because their final trip of the season includes three games in Cincinnati and five in four days in St. Louis, including a doubleheader in which they are the “home” team for one game.
St. Louis played the second game without manager Mike Shildt, who was suspended for his role in a benches-clearing altercation the previous evening. That confrontation began with Ryan Braun drawing a catcher's interference on catcher Yadier Molina, banging up his mitt
hand in the process.
Brewers manager Craig Counsell said before the game he considered the matter closed but when Cardinals pitcher Johan Oviedo hit Braun on the left arm with a pitch in the fifth inning of the second game, the umpires warned both benches against further plunkings.
After struggling all season to score runs in the first inning, the Brewers finally figured it out in recent days and bounced back from the first-game loss by scoring three runs against Oviedo, a 22-year-old rookie, before he retired a batter and four overall in the opening frame.
Avisaíl Garcia got things started by getting hit by a pitch and Christian Yelich followed with a walk after turning around a 0-2 count. That brought to the plate Braun, who lined a 0-1 fastball out to left for a three-run homer, No. 350 for his career.
Daniel Vogelbach drew a walk to keep things going and eventually came home on a sacrifice fly to deep left by Jedd Gyorko, making it 4-0. The Brewers scored six runs total in the first inning in the twin bill, exceeding the measly five they accumulated over the first 46 games of the season.
Making a spot start for the second time in five days, lefty Brent Suter delivered what his team needed with three shutout innings, allowing two hits and two walks while striking out three – the last three batters that he faced.
Jacob Nottingham's two-run homer in the sixth accounted for the Brewers' final runs. Suter (three innings), Freddy Peralta (two), Devin Williams and Eric Yardley combined on the shutout.
The first inning had been Death Valley for the Brewers' offense all season until Tuesday, when Christian Yelich and Braun hit back-to-back home runs.
That resurgence continued in Game 1 Wednesday when Yelich singled with one down off Wainwright and Keston Hiura blasted a 0-2 mistake out for his 13th home run of the season and a quick 2-0 lead.
That would be the extent of the damage off the 39-year-old Wainwright, who allowed only two harmless hits over the final six innings, both by García. He finished with nine strikeouts while issuing only one walk.
The Cardinals got one of those runs back with two down in the second. In an impressive display of power, Tyler O'Neill crushed a 2-2 fastball from Brandon Woodruff at 98 mph out the other way and onto the concourse in right for a home run that made it a 2-1 game.
It was the sixth homer of the season for O'Neill, who entered the game batting .189.
Woodruff found himself in big trouble in the fourth when Paul Goldschmidt led off with a sharp single to left and Brad Miller blooped an opposite-field double down the left-field line to put runners on second and third with no outs. The Brewers played the infield in as Matt Carpenter battled for eight pitches before popping out to shallow right.
O'Neill then struck again with an opposite-field sacrifice fly to right, scoring Goldschmidt to tie the game. Miller moved to third on the play but Woodruff stopped it there by striking out rookie Justin Williams, who collected his first big-league hit with a single in the second inning.
The Brewers gave away the go-ahead run in the fifth. Harrison Bader led off with a grounder to third baseman Jace Peterson, who badly overthrew first base for a two-base error. When Yadier Molina grounded out to third, Bader waited until Peterson made the thrown and bolted for second. First baseman Jedd Gyorko would have had a play but dropped the ball pulling it out of his mitt and Bader made it without a throw.
With the infield in, Tommy Edman foiled the strategy with an opposite-field double to left that made it 3-2. Edman then gave away an out by breaking for third before Woodruff went into his delivery, and Woodruff stepped off to nab him at third.
St. Louis picked up an insurance run in the sixth with one down when Miller pounced on a first-pitch changeup down the middle and drove it out to center for a home run. Woodruff pitched all seven games, becoming the first Brewers starter to go the distance since Jimmy Nelson (nine innings) in June 2017.
RECORD
Overall: 23-26
Home: 12-14
Away: 11-12
COMING UP
Thursday: Off day.
Friday: Royals at Brewers, 7:10 p.m. Milwaukee RHP Adrian Houser (1-5, 5.40) vs. Kansas City LHP Kris Bubic (1-5, 4.50). TV: FS Wisconsin/YouTube. Radio: AM-620.