Dustin May returned to form Monday night at Busch Stadium giving the St. Louis Cardinals a strong start against the team they’re chasing down in the NL Central, the Milwaukee Brewers. It would unfortunately not be enough as the Cardinals pen could not support his strong start eventually giving the game away to Milwaukee.
After both teams squandered good scoring chances in both halves of the 2nd inning, the Cardinals finally broke through in the bottom of the 3rd inning against Brewers starter Shane
Drohan. Pedro Pagés led off with a single to center followed by JJ Wetherholt reaching base on a rare error by Bryce Turang who couldn’t handle JJ’s grounder. Iván Herrera fouled out to third for the first out without moving runners over, but Jordan Walker lived up to his name drawing a smart walk to load the bases. Nelson Velázquez grounded out to third, but the Brewers were unable to turn the double play allowing Pagés to score giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead. José Fermín came through with a clutch two-out single scoring Wetherholt and doubling the Cardinals lead to 2-0 after 3 innings.
All the while, Dustin May was dealing. Through the first 5 innings, May only allowed 2 Brewers hits, but he was working on a somewhat limited pitch count as the Cardinals were being cautious with him after back discomfort a couple weeks ago and the line drive off of his ankle in his last start. With 2 outs in the top of the 5th inning, Dustin looked into the Cardinals dugout and shook his head “no” in case manager Oli Marmol was thinking of removing him before the 5th was over. Classic. Unfortunately, May gave up back-to-back singles which did result in Marmol removing him from the game, but Dustin deserves a nod for giving the Cardinals the solid start they needed. 4 2/3 innings with 7 strikeouts, no walks and no runs is just what the doctor ordered although this doc would have liked to see 1 more out. Justin Bruihl was brought in to get Christian Yelich out with the two runners he inherited from Dustin May which he did with a groundout to JJ Wetherholt.
Justin Bruihl would also handle the top of the 6th inning where he pitched out of a mild case of trouble after he walked Jackson Chourio and then ran the count to 3-1 on the dangerous William Contreras. He was able to nurse a ground ball out of Contreras which forced Chourio at second, but JJ Wetherholt couldn’t complete the double play on a low throw to Blaze Jordan at first. It didn’t matter as Jake Bauers grounded out innocently to first to end the Brewers 6th.
The Cardinals offense put together a threat in the bottom of the 6th inning when Nelson Velázquez led off by ripping a double into the left field corner. José Fermín laid down a perfect sacrifice bunt to move Velázquez over to third with just one out. Masyn Winn made sure that sacrifice paid off when he rifled a 90 mph cutter into left field for a RBI single making it 3-0 Cardinals.
The Cardinals bullpen ended up in a shaky situation in the top of the 7th when Justin Bruihl seemed to tweak something on a dribbler to the third base side of the mound from Mitchell. He left the game with Oli Marmol and the trainer with a right ankle sprain which meant that Ryan Fernandez was thrust into action because of the potential injury. Sal Frelick turned on the 4th pitch he saw from Fernandez into a ground rule double bouncing into the right field stands giving the Brewers their best scoring chance of the game with runners at 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. Fernandez would make matters worse when he flubbed a ground ball back to the mound by Pratt loading the bases with still no outs. Hamilton made that error by Fernandez hurt as he drilled a double into the right-center field gap scoring 2 and reducing the Cardinals lead to 3-2 with two runners on and still no outs and the top of he Brewers lineup coming up. Oli Marmol brought in Ryne Stanek to try and put out the Brewers fire. He walked Yelich on 5 pitches to load the bases again bringing Jackson Chourio to the plate with the potential to do big bad damage. Instead, Chourio grounded out to José Fermín who got the force at home for the first out. Unfortunately, Turang would slap the first pitch he saw from Stanek into left field for a 2-run single giving the Brewers a 4-3 lead. The only consolation was Contreras grounded into an inning-ending double play to stop the bleeding.
The Cardinals still had 9 outs to turn a Brewers lead into a comeback victory. They did nothing with their 3 outs in the bottom of the 7th inning. After Gordon Graceffo shut down the Brewers in the top of the 8th, the middle of the Cardinals lineup would have their chance. Chances wasted as Jordan Walker struck out looking, Lars Nootbaar flied out to right and José Fermín popped out to end the Cardinals 8th.
Gordon Graceffo stayed on the mound for the top of the 9th with a mission to not allow any more runs. He was successful setting down Milwaukee 1-2-3. Graceffo was one of the bright spots out of the Cards pen Monday night as he kept the game from getting out of hand.
What would the Cardinals do in the bottom of the 9th? With Brewers reliever RHP Trevor Megill on the mound, Masyn Winn would lead off the bottom of the 9th by smoking a single into left field becoming the tying run on first. Nathan Church popped out, but Alec Burleson came off the bench as the potential winning run. He had a very successful record against Megill going 3-4 with 2 RBI’s against him so there was still hope. He unfortunately whiffed on a nasty 90 mph knucklecurve. Bryan Torres was the next pinch-hitter representing the Cardinals final hope. He struck out to end the game finishing a disappointing night that could have been so much more for St. Louis.
The St. Louis Cardinals will have their work cut out for them in game 1 of a day/night doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday. The St. Louis Cardinals have yet to officially name their starter, but the Milwaukee Brewers are definitely sending likely All-Star game starter Jacob Misiorowski to the mound. First pitch is scheduled for 1:15pm central time at Busch Stadium.
