The Cardinals had only five hits off Milwaukee starter Jimmy Nelson, with three of them coming in the four-batter sequence in the third.
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Randal Grichuk made two key plays and Adam Wainwright lasted eight strong innings to help St. Louis take down Milwaukee 5-1 on Saturday. He is 1-0 with a 1.88 ERA in two starts against St. Louis this season. “You don’t want to think there’s something wrong and start overanalyzing stuff so you just try to keep it simple”.
“No”, Brewers manager Craig Counsell answered pointedly when asked if Nelson’s woes against St. Louis are weighing on the 27-year-old right-hander. “He fell behind Carpenter 3-0, which is trouble”. “Make mistakes to those guys and that’s what’s going to happen”.
An early Brewer lead dissipated quickly, and Brewer nemesis Carlos Martinez overcame an unusually poor performance by getting outs when he needed to after given the lead, and the Cards used a brief flurry of hitting to post a crucial 4-3 win for the Cardinals in St. Louis tonight. Milwaukee scored an unearned run in the first when Gennett walked, Chris Carter was hit by a pitch and Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit a hard one-hopper that shortstop Jedd Gyorko did not handle. He’s 7-14 overall on the season with a 4.42 ERA.
Joey Votto celebrated his 33rd birthday with four hits, including a home run, and the Cincinnati Reds beat the collapsing Pittsburgh Pirates 8-7 on Saturday night.
“We didn’t have a lot of hits but we made the most out of them”, Matheny said. When they get a runner in scoring position, you know they’ll probably get him in.
St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina tosses his helmet in the air after throwing out Milwaukee Brewers’ Hernan Perez trying to steal second to end the top of the fifth inning of a baseball game Friday, Sept. 9, 2016, in St. Louis.
“We’ve been playing some good ball as of late”, Gennett said a night after the Brewers opened the series with a 12-5 rout. The Brewers have homered in eight consecutive games.
The victory improved the Cardinals to 31-38 at Busch Stadium and kept them a half-game behind the New York Mets for the NL’s second wild card.
Kevin Siegrist worked a 1-2-3 eighth to turn the one-run lead over to Seung Hwan Oh in the ninth, who worked around a leadoff work for his 17th save. Pinch-hitter Ryan Braun grounded into a force at second for the final out.
“He was a little jumpy at the beginning”, manager Mike Matheny said. He was helped by double plays in the second and seventh and Grichuk’s big throw in the eighth.
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Cardinals: SS Aledmys Diaz (right thumb) went 2 for 4 for Double-A Springfield in a rehab start Friday night. Cardinals’ RHP Michael Wacha, who has been on the disabled list since August 9, is expected to throw live batting practice on Monday as he tries to become a bullpen option for the team before the end of the regular season. He was activated from 15-day DL (shingles) before his last start on September 7 and allowed three runs in 4 1-3 innings for no-decision in a 4-3 loss to Pittsburgh. The Cardinals had not had a starter last past the fifth inning in any of their four previous games, and had seen their starter allow four or more runs in seven of their last 12 home games dating back to August 6.
