Stephen Piscotty’s second grand slam of the season propelled the St. Louis Cardinals to a 9-8, rain-soaked, elongated victory Sunday and a weekend sweep, but the Brewers made the ending suspenseful. The Brewers have 11 hits the first two games, getting their lone run on Chris Carter’s 20th homer, and went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position on Saturday.
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Nelson completed six innings, his longest start of the season, and gave up two earned runs for his best start against the Cardinals in his career. By the time the game ended, perhaps 2,000 fans were left from the announced crowd of 41,148. In losing three straight games, the Brewers have managed just two runs. He connected on a full count against Blaine Boyer with two outs in the sixth for an 8-2 lead. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast and the game lasted just over six hours counting stoppages.
Louis Cardinals were interrupted by three rain delays totaling two hours and 29 minutes.
“It seemed like it was always coming down hard when our guys were trying to make pitches”, Matheny said.
The St. Louis Cardinals beat the rain and the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. “It’s a fun trip around the bases”. But new closer Seung Hwan Oh stranded the potential tying and go-ahead runs by fanning pinch-hitter Martin Maldonado to pick up his second save.
That allowed him to tag and score on Peralta’s sacrifice fly, giving St. Louis a 4-2 lead.
“He was not his normal self”, Counsell said of Anderson. The Brewers closed within 8-4 in the seventh on an RBI single by Jonathan Lucroy and an infield out by Nieuwenhuis. Milwaukee is 13-26 on the road with one series win and four splits in 13 attempts, and finished the first half 35-46.
Sunday’s game was the 81st of the season for the Brewers, marking the halfway mark of the season.
Cardinals left-hander Kevin Siegrist was placed on the 15-day disabled list with mononucleosis.
That outing actually qualifies as an improvement of sorts for Anderson, who has been hit so hard in his last three starts that his ERA during that span dropped to 12.71 after Tuesday night.
The Brewers, meanwhile, singled twice in both the first and second innings against Michael Wacha but failed to score. Manager Mike Matheny removed Trevor Rosenthal from the closer role about a week ago.
Cardinals: Carlos Martinez (7-5) is to start against Pittsburgh.
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The St. Louis Cardinals host the Milwaukee Brewers in a National League Central battle. “It’s an easy game to kind of stop, but they don’t make excuses for anything”. This year, he is just 1-4 with a 4.82 ERA at home.
