MILWAUKEE — With a chance to make an early-season statement against the reigning division champs, the Cardinals had to overcome themselves and Milwaukee’s heralded bullpen.
They nearly did one.
They could not do both.
The Cardinals scored two runs in the eighth inning to narrow a game that seemed out of reach when they let Milwaukee walk all over them. The Cardinals walked a batter with the bases loaded to break an early tie, and two more walks contributed to the Brewers’ pull-away inning in the seventh. Closer Josh Hader buzzed through the muscle of the Cardinals’ order to cinch the 6-5 victory Sunday at American Family Field and split the four-game visit.
Albert Pujols’ three-run homer in the third inning tied the game, 3-3, but a bases loaded walk from T. J. McFarland and then the prolonged seventh from Drew VerHagen allowed the Brewers to create the lead Hader cemented.
Hader retired all three batters he faced and struck out Nolan Arenado to collect his fourth save of the young season and 100th of his career.
The Cardinals got the tying run to third in the eighth inning against Brewers’ setup man Devin Williams. The St. Louis-area right-hander threw 37 pitches in the inning as the Cardinals sent eight batters to the plate. Williams’ 37th and final pitch was a ball to pinch-hitter Corey Dickerson with the bases loaded, walking him and forcing home the Cardinals’ fifth run. The Cardinals took advantage of three walks, two hits, and one wild pitch to get two runs in the inning, but they could not take advantage of chasing Williams from it.
With the tying run at third and go-ahead run at second, reliever Trevor Gott needed four pitches to save Williams’ outing from capsizing the lead. Trevor got a groundball from Dylan Carlson to end the inning.
The near rally came a few innings after the one-swing rally.
With echoes of Easter Sundays past, Pujols delivered a home run to tie the game, 3-3 in the third inning. Pujols’ 681st career home run was a three-run jolt off Brewer’s starter Aaron Ashby that traveled 426 feet into the glove of a young Cardinals fan.
In his first at-bat of the game, Pujols came up with the bases loaded and pounced early, but pulled the pitch foul. The at-bat ended when he took a 95-mph fastball from Ashby through the heart of the strike zone for a called strike 3. There was no chance of a pitch getting past him in the same spot two innings later. Homers on Easter aren’t new. In April 2006, just days after the Cardinals’ opened their current Busch Stadium, Pujols hit three home runs against Cincinnati to rally the club for a victory.
Once the Cardinals got back in the game, they gave up just enough to make it too much for them to do that twice.
Through seven innings, the Cardinals had allowed seven hits and seven walks to goose the Brewers’ offense. VerHagen entered a one-run game for the seventh, and promptly followed the trend – walking the leadoff batter. The second batter, Andrew McCutchen, flipped a single to shallow right field, and the Cardinals’ complicated the inning with Tommy Edman’s throwing error. A walk, a bloop, and an error, and Milwaukee had two runners in scoring position before VerHagen could get an out.
Both of those runs scored on Tyrone Taylor’s two-out double to left field, and that widened Milwaukee’s lead to three runs.
In the first half of last season, the Cardinals led the majors in free bases. They gave up the most walks and were among the league leaders in hit batters. Their lead was substantial when the two gifts were combined. From the start Sunday, the Cardinals were charitable. Right-hander Dakota Hudson began his game by hitting leadoff batter Kolten Wong. Hudson (0-1) walked the next two batters to load the bases before he got an out.
He threw seven consecutive balls from the pitch that Wong to the start of the at-bat against No. 3 hitter Christian Yelich, and many of them were non-competitive, or balls out of his hand, as hitters will tell him.
The Brewers could have done far more with the first inning, considering the first five batters of the game either reached base or drove in a run with an out. Hudson allowed only three runs (two earned) when he was able to get two flyouts after Rowdy Tellez’s RBI double.
The leadoff Brewer reached base in four of the first seven innings, and three times that runner scored. The tiebreaking run came in the fourth inning. Keston Hiura led off with a single against Hudson to chase the right-hander from the game. Lefty McFarland entered to get a groundball and a possible double play to slip free of the mess. That did not happen. McFarland walked two, including the one with the bases loaded that forced home go-ahead run.
Jordan Hicks pitched two innings of relief and got both his pitch count up (to 35) and his velocity up (to 102 mph, on consecutive pitches). The Cardinals had Hicks stashed in the bullpen all series and were going to base his start in the coming week on how much and when he was used. Hicks pitched two scoreless innings and struck out three.
