The Brewers’ seven-game run against the Cardinals came to a hard stop Wednesday night in St. Louis, where Milwaukee fell 5-1 after the home club stacked extra-base hits early and never really let go of the game.
Milwaukee had its best chance to strike first in the opening inning. Christian Yelich singled, Jake Bauers walked, and Garrett Mitchell followed with an infield hit to load the bases with two outs for Luis Lara in just his second career game. Lara couldn’t cash it in, grounding out to third and leaving the Brewers empty-handed.
St. Louis wasted no time answering.
Masyn Winn, Jordan Walker, and Alec Burleson each doubled in the first inning to put the Cardinals ahead 2-0 after one. Winn’s double came on a rough moment for Lara in right field, as the rookie took a ball off the face while fighting the sun.
Kyle Harrison settled in for a brief stretch after that, but the Cardinals kept finding damage. José Fermín launched a solo homer in the fourth, his fourth of the season, to push the lead to 3-0.
Harrison’s night ended after four innings, and it was another short outing for the 24-year-old left-hander: 70 pitches, three runs allowed on four hits, no walks, and two strikeouts. All four hits against him went for extra bases.
Michael McGreevy, meanwhile, kept Milwaukee stuck in neutral. The Brewers got a first-inning threat against him, but after that he rolled.
He set down 14 straight hitters after Pratt’s leadoff single in the second, and Milwaukee didn’t get another runner until the seventh. McGreevy finished with a clean, efficient night before leaving in the seventh.
The game really tilted in the sixth. Grant Anderson had already worked a scoreless fifth, but in the sixth he gave up a leadoff single to Jordan Walker before striking out Nelson Velázquez. Jared Koenig then came in, Walker stole second, and Burleson drilled a two-run homer to right to make it 5-0.
Milwaukee finally broke through in the seventh. William Contreras flew out to open the inning, then Mitchell doubled into the right-center gap and Lara singled to left to put runners on the corners.
That ended McGreevy’s night and brought in Luis Gastelum for his MLB debut. Gastelum allowed a Pratt sacrifice fly and an Ortiz double, but Andrew Vaughn grounded out to end the inning with the Brewers still down 5-1.
There was also a notable defensive wrinkle after Vaughn replaced Jones at second base: he stayed in the game at third, with Ortiz moving over to second. Vaughn has played third before, but only for 14 career innings, almost all of them in 2021. It wasn’t clear after the game whether Brice Turang was unavailable for a specific reason or whether Pat Murphy simply gave him a full day off.
Garrett Stallings, who debuted with a scoreless inning against the Reds last week, finished the game with two perfect innings and three strikeouts. Milwaukee’s offense never mounted much after the seventh. Yelich walked to start the eighth, and Pratt singled with two outs in the ninth, but that was it.
Mitchell and Pratt finished with two hits apiece, while Lara, Ortiz, and Yelich each added one. Mitchell and Ortiz had Milwaukee’s only extra-base hits.
The Brewers’ four-game overall winning streak and their seven-game streak against St. Louis both came to an end in the 5-1 loss.
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