It was tense and uncomfortable, but the Brewers picked up their second 3-2 win of this four-game set against the Cardinals to give them a 3-1 series victory. Christian Yelich led the offense, but the big story was once again Quinn Priester, who continued an excellent run of outings that is now approaching a month and a half.
Priester got things started by striking out Brendan Donovan — back in the lineup for the first time since Tuesday because of some lingering injury issues — looking at a close 3-2 pitch. Iván Herrera got hit by a 1-2 pitch that rode up and in (no intent here folks, settle down), but Rhys Hoskins made a nice play on an Alec Burleson grounder to start a 3-6-3 double play.
Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas started by striking out Sal Frelick on three pitches, but Jackson Chourio became the Brewers’ first baserunner when he reached on a jam-shot single into the big hole between first and second base. William Contreras followed with a walk, and the Brewers had Mikolas under pressure in the first inning. But Mikolas struck out Christian Yelich and Rhys Hoskins on six pitches, and the moment passed (and Mikolas had a weirdly roundabout not-quite-immaculate inning?).
Willson Contreras, the series’ antagonist, led off the second without major incident, on a groundout to his best friend Rhys Hoskins (who he sort of brushed past when he got to first base, much to Hoskins’ bemusement). Priester got two more groundouts and had a 1-2-3 inning in the second.
Brice Turang led off the second with a double down the left field line. Caleb Durbin failed to get a bunt down a couple of times and then grounded out to third, and Turang had to stay at second base. That brought up new Brewer Drew Avans, who played in his first seven major league games earlier this season with the Athletics, in which he went 2-for-15. But he struck out, and Ortiz made Mikolas throw seven pitches and hit a solid line drive to left, but, like the one he hit yesterday that came close to tying the game late, it didn’t quite have enough juice to get over the wall. For the second straight inning, the Brewers’ struggling offense squandered a good scoring opportunity.
Jordan Walker grounded out on Priester’s first pitch of the third inning, and Priester then struck out Victor Scott II on three pitches. Jose Barrero, St. Louis’s shortstop today, flew out to shallow left, and Priester had faced the minimum through three innings on just 33 pitches.
Frelick made the first out of the bottom of the third on a soft liner to second, then Chourio and Contreras both struck out (Contreras looking on a pitch that could have been called a ball, but alas). Mikolas had six strikeouts through three innings, tied for a season high with plenty of time to go.
Donovan, who came in hitting .310, led off the fourth with the Cardinals’ first hit, a bloop single to center. Herrera followed with what was a frustrating at-bat for the Brewers: he got a favorable ball call on a 2-2 pitch that should have been strike three, and then on 3-2, he hit a single on a weak ground ball because Turang had gone to cover second base as Donovan was running. That put runners on the corners with nobody out; Priester got the first out on a shallow fly ball to center, on which Donovan was unable to advance, but when Chourio missed the cutoff man, Herrera advanced to second base, eliminating a double play opportunity. Wn. Contreras hit a grounder to short that maybe could have been that inning-ending double play, but instead it was an RBI groundout. Turang then finished the inning on a nice play on an Arenado grounder up the middle, and the damage was limited to one run.
The Brewers had an immediate answer: On the second pitch of the bottom of the fourth, Yelich drove one out to the Brewer bullpen in left field and tied the game. That wasn’t all, though: Hoskins followed with a single, and after a Turang flyout, Durbin also singled. With Avans at the plate, a wild pitch by Mikolas advanced both runners, putting them on second and third with one out, and Avans came through with a sac fly to right that scored Hoskins and gave the Brewers a 2-1 lead. It was the first RBI of Avans’ career.
Priester worked around a one-out single in the top of the fifth, and Mikolas did one better in the bottom of the inning, as he got the top of the Brewers’ lineup in order. Donovan reached again to start the sixth — he hit a grounder up the middle that would have been an out, but it deflected off Priester’s foot and into left field. No trouble, though, as Priester got the next three batters to fly out. That ended his afternoon, and it was another great outing for Priester: his final line was six innings, four hits, no walks, three strikeouts, and one run on 88 pitches. That’s eight straight appearances in which Priester hasn’t allowed more than three runs, as he lowered his season ERA to 3.46.
Yelich led off the bottom of the sixth with an infield single, but he was erased by a Hoskins double play, and Turang grounded out to end the inning. Abner Uribe replaced Priester in the top of the seventh and put up another zero, despite a one-out single by Nolan Gorman.
Mikolas was also done after six, as he was replaced by lefty John King in the seventh. But Durbin led off with a single to right, and he advanced on an Avans groundout. Ortiz hit a grounder to Contreras at first, which got away from him, and Ortiz was credited with an infield single. Ortiz stole second to put runners on second and third with one out, and Durbin scored on an RBI groundout from Frelick. That was a big insurance run for Milwaukee, increasing the lead to 3-1.
They’d need that extra cushion, too. Jared Koenig came on to pitch the eighth. He retired pinch-hitter Masyn Winn and Donovan, but with two outs, the Cardinals got to him. Herrera homered to left, his eighth of the year, to cut the lead to 3-2, and Burleson hit a fly ball into the right spot down the right field line; Frelick couldn’t quite get to it, and it landed just fair and bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double, which the broadcast told us was his first extra-base hit of the season off of a left-handed pitcher.
With Contreras coming up and Burleson in scoring position in a one-run game, the Brewers switched to right-hander Nick Mears. After a first-pitch slider that missed outside, Mears came back to get strikes on the next three pitches, finishing Contreras off with a slider that he swung over. Milwaukee would, at minimum, take a one-run lead to the ninth.
Milwaukee certainly wouldn’t mind having another insurance run before getting to that ninth, though. The younger Contreras grounded out to start the inning, but Yelich followed that with a double down the left field line, his third hit of the game. But Hoskins struck out, the Cardinals brought in lefty JoJo Romero to face Turang (and replace Kyle Leahy, who’d finished the seventh), and Turang also struck out.
Trevor Megill would have to protect a one-run lead — recall that he also picked up a save in a 3-2 win over the Cardinals on Friday, but he entered that game up 3-1 and allowed a run on a Scott RBI single in the ninth. He’d have to get things started against Arenado, who came in 3-for-7 with two homers against Megill in his career, including a walk-off homer in St. Louis earlier this season. Arenado didn’t make it easy for Megill: he fell behind but hit about a thousand foul balls before singling on the at-bat’s 12th pitch.
Lars Nootbaar pinch ran for Arenado, and things went from bad to worse when Gorman reached on a bunt single. Megill got ahead of Walker with back-to-back curveballs that Walker swung over, and struck him out looking two pitches later for a big first out. Scott, who had that RBI hit off Megill on Friday, was next. Megill got ahead 0-2, but he spiked a 1-2 curveball into the dirt, and both runners advanced. But on the next pitch, Megill struck out Scott with a high fastball, and he was one out away from escaping. The batter was Winn, who’d entered in the eighth; on a 2-2 pitch, Megill got him with a curveball off the outer half, and the Brewers won. It wasn’t a comfortable ending, and Megill needed 29 pitches, but he did it.
The Brewers’ offense is still struggling, but they managed to pick up three wins in the series despite scoring only three runs in two of those games. The series win puts them 1.5 games in front of the Cardinals in the division race. It wasn’t an easy day for the Brewer offense, but they had a clear leader in this one: Yelich, who went 3-for-4 with a solo homer, a double, and an infield single. Durbin also had two hits and a run scored today, and Turang had the team’s only other extra-base hit with his double.
The pitching staff was better. Priester, as covered, continued his great run with six innings of one-run ball (and that run was pretty cheap, too). Uribe lowered his ERA to 1.31, and while Koenig had a rare hiccup, Mears got a big strikeout and Megill powered through the ninth for his 15th save.
The Brewers will get tomorrow off before starting a big three-game series at Wrigley Field on Tuesday.