The Brewers took control early and never looked back, cruising to a 6-2 win behind a four-run first inning. Milwaukee will get a well-earned day off tomorrow before returning home to face the 25-11 Yankees, who currently hold the second-best record in baseball.
Milwaukee did all of their damage in the first with two outs. Brice Turang ripped a two-out single into right field, and Cardinals starter Andre Pallante hit William Contreras with a sinker. Jake Bauers, who has a .983 OPS with runners in scoring position after today’s game, sliced a single of his own into left. Turang slid home well ahead of the throw to give the Brewers a 1-0 lead.
Up next was Andrew Vaughn, who went 0-for-4 in his return from injury on Monday. Apparently one game was all Vaughn needed to get acclimated, as he worked Pallante to seven pitches before sending a fastball over the wall in left-center field for a three-run homer. All of a sudden, the Brewers were up four runs before Brandon Sproat even touched the mound.
Sproat gave up a first-inning double to Iván Herrera that easily could have been ruled an error on third baseman David Hamilton, but it was the only hit he allowed across four innings.
The rookie right-hander is still far from a finished product. He walked three batters and hit Cardinals outfielder Nathan Church while trying to field a bunt attempt, and he needed 76 pitches to get through four innings. Still, the flashes are obvious. At times, Sproat looks borderline untouchable before suddenly losing the handle for an inning. It’s hard to complain about one hit over four shutout innings from a pitcher who is still developing.
While Sproat kept the Cardinals scoreless through four, and Milwaukee got an insurance run in the top of the fifth. The rally started with a one-out infield hit by Joey Ortiz, who eventually scored on a wild pitch by Pallante.
DL Hall and Aaron Ashby shut the Cardinals down through the seventh inning. St. Louis still had just one hit — Herrera’s first-inning double — but Trevor Megill, who hadn’t allowed a run in his previous seven appearances, surrendered a pair of hard-hit singles and a run in the eighth.
Both teams scored a run in the ninth to bring the game to its final score of Brewers 6, Cardinals 2. The top of the ninth started with Hamilton and Ortiz both striking out looking, but the Brewers mounted another two out rally. Frelick kept the inning alive with a single, and Chourio — who’d already singled earlier in the game — hit a 108.7 mph rocket over the head of Walker in right field and off the wall. Frelick scored without a throw to give Chourio his first RBI of the season.
The Cardinals got their second and final run off of Abner Uribe, who allowed a leadoff double in the ninth to Nolan Gorman. Gorman would come around to score on a pretty uncharacteristic error by Ortiz, who couldn’t come up with a soft grounder from Alec Burleson.
With Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn back in the lineup, the Brewers’ offense looks different. Chourio, Vaughn, Frelick, and Bauers all recorded multi-hit games, while the pitching staff held the Cardinals to just four hits. Milwaukee is now three games over .500 as they welcome the Yankees on Friday. Jacob Misiorowski is on the hill for the Crew, with first pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m.