Burnes turns in another great start
At least in recent seasons, the stakes have almost always been high any time the Milwaukee Brewers square off against the St. Louis Cardinals.
And more often than not, Corbin Burnes has been up to the challenge.
In a battle of the Central Division coleaders Monday night at American Family Field, the right-hander delivered one of his best starts of the season.
Burnes scattered two hits and two walks over seven innings, striking out 10 in the process, to lead the way to a 2-0 victory — the Brewers’ second shutout of the Cardinals in as many meetings with their ace on the mound.
And, in a nice coincidence, both games with St. Louis No. 1 Miles Mikolas starting opposite him.
“I try not to make any game bigger than it is,” Burnes said afterward. “It’s still mid- to end of June, playing baseball. We’ve still got a lot of games left. If you start making one game bigger than the other, you start putting extra pressure on yourself and start trying to do too much.
“For me, it’s another start, go out there, do what I can to help these guys win. And we came away with a win today.”
By going seven innings, Burnes bridged the game to the back end of Milwaukee’s bullpen perfectly.
Then, Devin Williams and Josh Hader took care of business from there as the Brewers improved to 39-30 and took a slim one-game lead over the Cardinals with three more to go in the series.
Here are three takeaways:
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In his first start against the Cardinals on May 29 at Busch Stadium, Burnes allowed two hits and a walk with a season-high-tying 11 strikeouts over seven innings.The Brewers won that game, 8-0, to split a four-game series.
While he didn’t get nearly the support this time around, his pitching line was almost the same across the board as he issued one more walk and one fewer strikeout on eight more pitches.
The most important number? Zero, as in runs allowed.
“Similar type of approach,” Burnes said when comparing the starts. “I think early on they were going to try to wait me out, and we kind of had to force their hand a little bit by being in the zone early and often. Then we started to get some early swings.
“I threw almost 20 pitches in the first. They were good counts, and then after that we were able to settle in. It just all started with getting ahead of hitters.”
Burnes had a two-batter span in which Juan Yepez doubled with two outs in the second and No. 7 hitter Dylan Carlson followed by drawing a walk.
Otherwise, it was lots of strikeouts and lots of groundouts as Burnes hammered the Cardinals with cutter after cutter. By outing’s end, he’d thrown 69 and generated 12 of his game-high 20 swings and misses with it.
“The cutter’s good,” Burnes said, rather modestly. “We were kind of able to throw it to both sides of the plate at the bottom of the zone. When I’m able to do that, that’s when I’m at my best, mixing in all the other stuff in.”
Brewers manager Craig Counsell was a little stronger in his praise.
“I thought Corbin was as good as we’ve seen him this year,” he said. “Everything was good. He made some great pitches. His cutter was an excellent pitch, and he made a lot of that pitch today.”
Monday marked the fifth time this season and 17th time in his career Burnes generated 10 or more strikeouts in a game, with the latter figure passing Teddy Higuera for second-most in franchise history.
Only Yovani Gallardo (18) has more such games.
Ninth-inning defense is noteworthy
Hader gets most of the credit for racking up his 20th save with a scoreless ninth.
But there was some serious glove work going on behind him, starting with the bang-bang play at second base that cut down Brendan Donovan for the first out.
After replay overturned an out call and allowed Donovan to reach with an inning-opening infield single, he attempted to advance to second on a ball that squirted away briefly from catcher Omar Narváez. Narváez pounced on it quickly, however, and fired a rope to Luis Urías at second base.
Brian Knight ruled Donovan safe, but Counsell quickly challenged and it didn’t take long for the call to be overturned as replays showed Urías’s quick swipe tag got Donovan on the foot a click before Donovan’s hand reached the bag.
“It was just a spectacular tag. As good as it gets,” Counsell said of the play at second. “We’ve seen Willy do that a little bit and now we’ve seen Wicho start to incorporate it.”
Then, one batter later, Paul Goldschmidt struck out only to see the ball again squirt away from Narváez. Narváez hustled after the ball and made a strong and accurate throw to Rowdy Tellez at first base to get Goldschmidt by a step.
Hader then got Nolan Arenado to ground to third for the only routine out of his appearance.
It’s Chi Chi time
Counsell confirmed after the game that right-hander Chi Chi González would start Tuesday’s game in place of Aaron Ashby, who was placed on the injured list Monday afternoon with left forearm inflammation.
González, 30, did not fare well at all in his other two outings for the Minnesota Twins (7.71 ERA in seven innings).
Burnes getting through seven innings was big for the rest of the bullpen, which got some additional rest in advance of a start from González.