For four innings tonight, Brewers pitchers, led by starter Jacob Misiorowski, flirted with disaster but mostly limited the damage. But five straight innings in which Brewers pitchers allowed leadoff baserunners proved to be too many, the Cardinals hung a crooked number on two Brewer relievers in the fifth, and Cardinals starter Sonny Gray did plenty to hold the Brewers at bay.
Sal Frelick started the game by watching a high 1-2 pitch that sure looked like a ball but was called strike three.
Jackson Chourio got ahead 3-1 and became the first baserunner of the game when he lined a ball 112 mph through the middle for a one-out single, and Christian Yelich also got ahead before lining a 2-0 fastball into right for another single. William Contreras was frustrated after he popped up an 86 mph cutter that was right down the middle for the second out, and Gray struck out Brice Turang, and the two early hits went for naught.
Misiorowski started the game ominously by walking Brendan Donovan on five pitches and then, after a long battle, walking Iván Herrera, too. Misiorowski got the first out when Isaac Collins made a sliding catch on a shallow fly ball to left, and Durbin made another impressive defensive play when he dove to his left on a Nolan Arenado ground ball and got Herrera at second base. Miz was almost out of it, but Lars Nootbaar lined a single to center that scored Donovan. Nootbaar was caught in a rundown and tagged out on the play before Arenado could reach home plate, and the inning was over, but the Cardinals had an early 1-0 lead.
Gray struck out Collins to start the second, but Jake Bauers gave Milwaukee another baserunner with a hard-hit one-out single. Durbin struck out looking at a sinker that came back to the outside edge for the second out. With Joey Ortiz up, Bauers stole second base, but Ortiz grounded out on a 3-2 pitch and the inning was over.
After issuing an eight-pitch walk to Thomas Saggese to start the bottom of the second, Misiorowski was already up to 33 pitches. Pedro Pagés lined a 1-0 fastball into right that put runners on the corners with nobody out, and Miz was in trouble for the second straight inning. Misiorowski was able to get out of the inning while limiting the damage by getting Jordan Walker to ground into a double play (which scored Saggese) and striking out Victor Scott II, but it was a shaky first two innings for the young Brewer hurler.
The Brewers got half of their deficit back when Frelick led off the second with an authoritative home run, which at 422 feet was, according to the Brewers, the longest of his 17 career homers. Gray got Chourio on a groundout and Yelich on a strikeout before yielding a two-out single to Contreras, but Donovan made a diving stop on a Turang grounder and threw Contreras out at second to end the inning. Still, the Brewers were on the board, with the score 2-1 Cardinals.
Donovan doubled to start the bottom of the third, and the Cardinals were in prime position to answer the Brewers’ answer. Miz did get the first out when Herrera grounded out to Durbin (who was bailed out by a nice pick by Bauers on a low throw), but Alec Burleson dropped a single in front of Frelick—a medium-deep fly ball that we’re used to seeing Frelick catch. Donovan also appeared to expect Frelick to catch it and had to hold at third. But the Brewers got out of this jam on an unconventional strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play: Arenado swung and missed at a 3-2 slider, Contreras threw down to second with Burleson running, and Turang redirected the throw home to nab Donovan, who took off after Contreras threw to second. It was far from a clean inning, but Misiorowski had his first zero of the day.
Collins hit a laser to right to start the fourth, but he didn’t get quite enough loft under it and Walker caught it moving back toward the warning track. Bauers followed with another single, this one at 108 mph, his second of the game. A Durbin chopper erased Bauers from the basepaths and brought up Ortiz with two out, but he hit a comebacker that Gray, after a deflection, fielded for the final out.
A back-foot curveball from Misiorowski landed a little too literally, and Nootbaar was on to start the bottom of the fourth with a hit-by-pitch. Rob Zastryzny began warming as Saggese came to the plate, and Miz got the first out when he struck Saggese out swinging at a high slider in a full count. Pagés hit an 0-2 curveball off the plate off the end of his bat and into left for a bloop single, a cheap hit that put two on with one out, but Miz got the second out when Walker hit the first pitch into center field for the second out (with Saggese tagging and advancing to third). It would not be Misiorowski, though, who faced Scott; Pat Murphy moved to Zastryzny at that point, and Scott made pretty good contact but Chourio ran it down in the left-field gap.
Misiorowski managed to limit the damage tonight, but it wasn’t a good outing. The leadoff batter reached in each of the four innings that he pitched in, and while he allowed only two runs, Miz allowed nine baserunners (five hits, three walks, and a hit batter) while getting just 11 outs. He struck out three. We’ll see what happens, but the version of Misiorowski that we’ve mostly been seeing since his IL stint is not someone that Murphy is likely to trust in any postseason role.
Frelick, for the second time in the game, was the victim of some awful umpiring to start the fifth; this time he not only struck out on a pitch that was clearly high, the strike two that he looked at was a couple inches inside; the Gameday strike zone had both pitches significantly out of the zone. A brutal at-bat for home-plate umpire D.J. Reyburn. Chourio grounded back to Gray for the second out, and a two-out Yelich single went by the wayside when Contreras grounded out to Donovan to end the inning.
Zastryzny continued in the fifth, but it didn’t go well. Donovan, Herrera, and Burleson all singled with nobody out, and while Burleson’s sharp line drive prevented Donovan from scoring, St. Louis had the bases loaded with nobody out. Murphy went back to his bullpen and summoned Grant Anderson, who came in to face Arenado with the bases juiced. Arenado worked it full and fouled off a couple of pitches before lining a bases-clearing double into the left-field corner, and Arenado advanced to third when Turang’s relay throw home was off line. St. Louis led 5-1, and there still weren’t any outs.
After Nootbaar popped out for the first out, Saggese also hit a double into the left-field corner, scoring Arenado to make it 6-1. A strikeout of Pagés got the second out, but Walker lined a single up the middle for the Cardinals’ sixth hit of the inning, which scored Saggese and extended the lead to 7-1. Scott also picked up a hit, a single that advanced Walker to third. Murphy pulled Anderson at that point, and Joel Payamps was able to end the inning without any further damage, but the Cardinals went to the sixth inning with a six-run lead.
Bauers picked up his third hit with two outs in the top of the sixth, another single, and Durbin followed with another single. Reyburn’s strike zone continued to baffle when a 3-0 pitch off the plate to Ortiz was called a strike, and on the next pitch, Ortiz grounded out to end the inning.
Danny Jansen and Andruw Monasterio entered defensively in the bottom of the sixth, getting Contreras and Turang off their feet. Payamps, who’d gotten the last out of the fifth, struck out Herrera, marking the first time in the game that Milwaukee retired St. Louis’s leadoff hitter. Burleson’s toe was grazed by a 2-2 curveball and he reached, but Arenado grounded into a double play to end the inning.
Gray, who in six innings allowed nine hits but didn’t walk anyone and gave up only one run tonight, gave way to Gordon Graceffo in the seventh. Graceffo had a 1-2-3 inning against the top of the Brewer order. Tobias Myers entered for the Brewers in the bottom of the seventh, and his first pitch was grounded to another defensive replacement, Rhys Hoskins (Bauers moved to left field), making his first appearance in the field since coming off the IL. Hoskins had no trouble and recorded the first out. Myers walked Saggese, but Pagés popped out for the second out. Walker picked up another hit, a single to left, but Scott popped out and despite some traffic, Myers had a scoreless seventh.
Jansen, in his first plate appearance, singled to right off of Graceffo to start the eighth. Jansen advanced to second on an Andruw Monasterio groundout, and Hoskins struck out on a foul tip. Bauers, looking for his fourth hit, instead drew a walk, but Durbin grounded out and the inning was over.
Monasterio made a nice play to retire Donovan for the first out. Herrera hit a ball hard but it was right to Chourio for the second out, but Burleson lined a double into the left-field gap to extend the inning. But Arenado struck out, and Myers, while far from perfect, had two scoreless innings.
Ryan Fernandez came on to mop things up, but Ortiz greeted him rudely by lining a high fastball into right for a single. After Frelick flew out, Chourio reached with a weak grounder that stayed inside the third-base line for an infield hit. But Yelich and Jansen struck out, and the modest ninth-inning rally was snuffed out.
The Brewers went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position in this one, and while they managed 12 hits, Frelick’s solo homer was their only extra-base hit. Combine that with an off-day for the pitching staff, and you get a game like this. On the bright side, the Cubs lost this evening, so even with this forgettable game, the Brewers’ magic number for the NL Central dropped to three.
Tomorrow’s game is at 6:15 p.m., when Chad Patrick and Miles Mikolas will face off in the second of this three-game series.
