Brewers on brink of NL Central crown after extra-inning victory

Box Score

This game between the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals had the makings of a frustrating evening for Brewers fans. Brewers hitters were hitting line drives all over the field but hitting them right at players, or hitting balls that would’ve been homers in most ballparks in the league but not in St. Louis. Additionally, William Contreras had to leave this one early after getting hit on the hand with a bat. But the Brewer pitching staff held firm, and some late clutch play led to a satisfying Brewer victory. Combine that with a Cubs loss, and the Brewers are on the brink of clinching their third straight National League Central crown.

Sal Frelick, the game’s first batter, grounded out to shortstop. Jackson Chourio hit a hard grounder through the infield for a one-out hit, but Christian Yelich and Contreras also grounded out, and Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas was through the first inning.

Chad Patrick was on the mound for Milwaukee, and he needed only one pitch to get his first out, a Brendan Donovan pop fly in foul territory near third base. Iván Herrera hit a high chopper to shortstop for the second out, and Alec Burleson flew out to shallow left, and Patrick had a 1-2-3 first inning on just seven pitches.

Mikolas got two quick outs in the second with a strikeout of Brice Turang and a soft line drive from Caleb Durbin. Jake Bauers, though, battled for a nine-pitch at-bat that resulted in a two-out double off the very top of the wall in the left-field gap. That gave Andrew Vaughn a run-producing opportunity with two out, but Mikolas, eyeing Joey Ortiz in the on-deck circle, was very careful with Vaughn and walked him on five pitches. Ortiz made Mikolas pay, though, and jumped on the first pitch and grounded an RBI single through the right side of the infield. Frelick flew out to center to end the inning, but the Brewers were ahead early, 1-0.

Patrick needed a few more pitches in the second inning but worked another three-up, three-down inning. Mikolas nearly had a quick inning in response, as he got groundouts from Chourio and Yelich to start things. With two outs, Contreras very nearly homered, but was then nearly thrown out at second after it bounced off the wall. He was safe with a double, but was stranded at second when Turang was struck out looking on a bad call on a 3-2 pitch. The Brewers certainly were not getting any breaks from the umpires in this series.

Patrick started the bottom of the third by getting Pedro Pagés to pop out to Turang, and followed that with a backwards K of Jordan Walker. Victor Scott II then struck out by fouling off a bunt in a 1-2 count, and Patrick was perfect through three innings.

Mikolas started the fourth with a strikeout of Durbin. Bauers hit another ball hard, but this 107 mph line drive went straight at Walker for the second out. Vaughn, though, put his line drive into the left-field corner, where it bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double. Ortiz had another two-out opportunity with a runner in scoring position, but this time he was thrown out when Nolan Arenado made a great barehanded play on a weak grounder up the third-base line.

With one out in the fourth, Herrera jumped on the first pitch and lined a single into center field to put an end to the streak of ten straight batters that Patrick retired to start the game. Burleson followed with another hit, and suddenly the Cardinals had runners on the corners with one out. Arenado then got just enough of a 1-2 pitch to dump another hit into left, and the Cardinals were on the board. After a visit from pitching coach Chris Hook, Thomas Saggese swung at the first pitch and hti a grounder up the middle that looked destined for center field until Ortiz dove, stopped it, and flipped to Turang for the second out. Nolan Gorman then struck out on three pitches, and Patrick was out of the inning with just the one run allowed.

The Brewers entered the top of the fifth with the score back square. Frelick started the inning by slapping a double against the shift, down the left-field line. Chourio grounded out to third for the first out, a ball on which Frelick had to stay at second. Yelich thought he had an RBI single, but he was robbed of a hit when Scott made an impressive catch diving straight in on a 107 mph line drive. Contreras drew an eight-pitch walk, but Turang flew out to right and Mikolas worked out of the jam. The Brewers had left seven on base and gone just 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position through five innings.

Pagés started the bottom of the fifth with a single to center, and Walker reached on a swinging bunt that Ortiz barehanded but couldn’t get the throw to first in time. Scott then laid down a sacrifice bunt, and the Cardinals had runners on second and third with one out, and Pat Murphy was out of the dugout to get Patrick. Aaron Ashby was in to face the lefty Donovan, but Donovan won that battle and lined a 2-2 curveball (which wasn’t even in the zone) into right for an RBI single. Walker had to hold at third, and Herrera grounded into a double play to end the inning, but the Cardinals had a 2-1 lead.

Patrick pitched quite well tonight, and had some tough batted ball luck in the fourth and fifth innings. He finished with two runs allowed on five hits, no walks, and three strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings and only 56 pitches. He left this one in position to be the losing pitcher, but I have to imagine he helped himself in the battle for the Brewers’ number four starter position.

Durbin became the third Brewer to hit one high off the wall when he came a few inches away from homering to lead off the sixth—Burleson leaped for it at the wall but couldn’t make the catch. It was the Brewers fifth double of the game, and for the second straight inning, they had the leadoff hitter at second base. That was it for Mikolas, who was replaced by Kyle Leahy; in what was possibly his last start in St. Louis as a Cardinal, Mikolas left with one run in in five innings and responsible for the runner at second.

Bauers swung at the first pitch and hit a slow chopper that Leahy fielded; Leahy thought about trying to get Durbin at third, but ended up just barely getting Bauers at first. That gave Vaughn a chance with Durbin on third and one out, and Vaughn did what he needed to do, with a fly out to center field that easily scored Durbin and tied the game. The next pitch missed Ortiz’s nose by a couple of millimeters, and a couple pitches later he lined his second hit into right with a two-out single. Frelick worked a long at-bat but struck out on a 3-2 pitch in the dirt, and the inning was over, but the Brewers were back even.

The Cardinals very nearly got another cheapie of a hit to start the bottom of the sixth, but Turang just threw out Burleson on a weak grounder. Arenado did hit a looping fly ball into left for a single with one out, and Saggese finally at least hit one hard with a line drive into left. The Cardinals were again threatening, with runners on first and second and one out, but Ashby got Gorman to fly out to center and he struck out Pagés looking and he was out of the inning.

Chourio hit a 112 mph line drive to start the seventh but hit it right at Scott, in a game in which the batted ball luck was absurdly in the Cardinals’ favor. Yelich tapped one back to the pitcher, Leahy, for the second out, and Contreras hit a liner to second for the third out. (To highlight some of the bad luck: Contreras’s line drive had a .770 xBA and Chourio’s .760. Earlier in the game, the doubles off the wall by Durbin, Contreras, and Bauers would’ve been home runs in 17, 21, and 19 of the league’s ballparks, respectively.)

Ashby re-emerged to start the bottom of the seventh, and he allowed a single to Walker to start the inning. Scott laid down another sac bunt to get Walker to second for the top of the order, and Donovan hit a big chopper to Turang for the second out, advancing Walker to third. Herrera reached when he hit Contreras’s wrist with the bat while swinging, which counts as a painful E2 for the Brewer backstop on catcher’s interference. The Brewers finally turned around some batted ball luck when Burleson hit a shot at 107 mph, but Turang picked it and threw him out to strand two runners and end the inning with the score still tied.

Riley O’Brien replaced Leahy in the eighth. Turang kept the ridiculous BABIP luck going by hitting one 106 mph right at Burleson in left, a ball that reached Burleson so quickly it surprised him and almost hit him in the face. Only a .680 xBA on that one. Arenado made a nice play on a sharp Durbin grounder for the second out (.510 xBA), and Bauers struck out looking for the third.

Abner Uribe was in for the bottom of the eighth, his third appearance in the last four days. Two pitches into Uribe’s appearance, Contreras—who, recall, was hit on the hand with a bat at the end of the previous inning—left the game, as he was clearly struggling to catch the ball. Here’s to hoping that Contreras is just sore, and he didn’t break anything in that hand.

With Danny Jansen behind the plate, Uribe struck out Arenado, got Saggese to ground out to Turang, and struck out Gorman. To the ninth, in a 2-2 ballgame.

O’Brien returned to the hill for the ninth, and he walked Vaughn on four pitches. Andruw Monasterio came in as a pinch-runner, and Ortiz—after failing to get a bunt down on the first pitch—grounded into a fielder’s choice on a “butcher boy” play, swapping places with Monasterio at first. With Frelick coming up, the Cardinals went to the bullpen for lefty JoJo Romero, and on the first pitch Frelick also grounded into a fielder’s choice. Chourio had a shot with two outs, and he hit another line drive, but it was again right at Scott and the inning was over.

Jared Koenig was tasked with shutting out the Cardinals in the ninth to try to send the game to extras. Koenig struck out Pagés, but he hit Walker in the foot with a 1-2 curveball to give the Cardinals a one-out baserunner. Yohel Pozo came in to pinch-hit for Scott, and he hit a little soft liner to short that turned into a 6-4-3 double play to end the ninth inning.

Yelich led off the tenth with Chourio in the zombie runner spot. Yelich led off with a fly ball to left that was caught, which did not enable Chourio to advance. Danny Jansen did advance the runner but he did it on a groundout, which meant that Milwaukee needed Turang to come through with a two-out hit if they wanted to score in the top of the tenth. And guess what? He did. Turang lined a 3-2 pitch through the left side of the infield for a run-scoring single. Durbin then got a hold of one, but it was run down on the warning track, 384 feet from home plate, for the third out. (That one, with just a .540 xBA, would’ve been a homer in only four of the 30 ballparks.)

With the left-handed Donovan coming up, the Brewers sent Koenig back to the mound for the favorable matchup. The Brewers then got a huge defensive play: Donovan hit a comebacker back to Koenig, who snagged it, initially looked at zombie runner Lars Nootbaar—who froze—but then threw to first for the sure out. But Monasterio, playing first base after coming into pinch-run, does not have the arm of your typical first baseman, and when Nootbaar tried to advance after Koenig’s throw to first, Monasterio gunned him down at third base. An extremely atypical 1-3-5 double play. Herrera, the next batter, put a scare into Koenig but flew out to Chourio in deep left, and the game was over.

This was a great win, and combined with the Cubs’ loss earlier in the evening, lowered the magic number to win the NL Central to one. It had the feel of a game that was just not going to go the Brewers’ way, despite the fact that their quality of contact was so much better than St. Louis’s for the whole game. But some clutch plays on both sides of the ball in the tenth clinched this one, and the Brewers can officially tie up the division with a win on Sunday. The only potential storm cloud is the report on Contreras’s wrist, which we’ll keep an eye out for.

Milwaukee picked up nine hits in this game, but the only Brewer with more than one hit was Ortiz, who was 2-for-4 with an RBI. Bauers, Contreras, Vaughn, Frelick, and Durbin all doubled. Patrick didn’t get the win but he pitched well, and Ashby, Uribe, and Koenig pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings between the three of them.

Tomorrow’s series finale is at 1:15 p.m. We expect to see Robert Gasser as tomorrow’s starter, but we’ll have to wait and see what sort of roster moves happen in order to get him onto the active roster.