MILWAUKEE — The Cardinals had made it a lot easier on staff ace Jack Flaherty by scoring 54 runs for him while he was in the game during his first seven starts, six of which were victories. Flaherty saw the other side of this coin for the first time this season Thursday but his performance was unaffected by the fact the Cardinals scored only one run for him in his six innings.
Flaherty didn’t allow any runs to the Milwaukee Brewers and neither did the Cardinals’ bullpen as the Cardinals scored one run in the first and another in the ninth for a 2-0 victory in the series-clinching game of a three-game set, increasing the Cardinals’ lead over Milwaukee to three games in the National League Central Division.
The series was controlled by starting pitching. Milwaukee’s threesome of Freddy Peralta, Brandon Woodruff and Corbin Burnes worked 19 1/3 innings, giving up nine hits and two runs for an 0.91 ERA while striking out 27. Kwang Hyun Kim, John Gant and Flaherty allowed 12 hits and one earned run in 16 1/3 innings for an ERA of 0.55. Flaherty, the first six-game winner in the majors, is 7-0 after his four-hit, six-strikeout performance.
The Cardinals clung to that 1-0 lead until the ninth when pinch hitter Lane Thomas walked, went to second on an infield out, stole third and came home as Brewers lefthander Angel Perdomo threw wildly to first base, trying to pick off Dylan Carlson, who had walked.
The Cardinals took their first lead in regulation time in the series when Nolan Arenado, a .368 lifetime hitter at Miller Park/American Family Field, singled with two outs in the first to score Tommy Edman from third. Edman opened with a single off Burnes, stole second and went to third on Paul Goldschmidt’s one-out grounder.
After Arenado’s hit, Matt Carpenter blooped a hit to center, where Lorenzo Cain missed a sliding catch attempt. Arenado set sail for third, where coach “Pop” Warner had the stop sign up but Arenado, after slowing briefly, revved up again and headed home. Diving headfirst for the plate, he was thrown out by shortstop Luis Urias.
Burnes fanned Harrison Bader for his third strikeout in the second inning, giving Burnes 52 strikeouts with no walks to start the season. That surpassed by one Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen’s record set in 2017, according to data dating to 1893.
Flaherty had to pitch out of trouble not of his doing in the Brewers’ second. Right fielder Carlson, though he was wearing sunglasses, did not see Travis Shaw’s drive to right until just before it hit off the wall out of Carlson’s desperate lunge.
Flaherty kept Shaw at second, though, getting a strikeout, a foul out and a fly out.
Carlson was an inadvertent part of controversy in the third when he hit a grounder behind first base. Daniel Vogelbach fielded it, thinking it was a foul ball that hit Carlson’s foot. But when first-base umpire Jim Reynolds signaled fair, Vogelbach hustled back toward fair territory and flipped to Burnes, who finally started off the mound toward first.
Carlson hadn’t moved. Cardinals manager Mike Shildt beseeched that the umpires get together, which they did, and, indeed, Todd Tichenor ruled that the ball had hit Carlson’s foot, making it a foul ball. Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell was none too pleased with crew chief Reynolds and soon found himself taking an early shower.
No matter. Carlson then flied out.
Flaherty issued his two walks in the fourth, to Vogelbach to lead off the inning and Omar Narvaez with two out. In between, shortstop Edman had made an excellent back-to-the-infield catch on Shaw’s pop fly and avoided contact with a sliding Bader other than minor contact with their legs.
Jackie Bradley Jr., with a chance to tie the game or send the Brewers ahead, instead grounded up the middle to Edman for the third out.
After he had nine strikeouts, running his total to 58 with no walks, Burnes passed Edman on a 3-1 pitch with two out in the fifth. The last man Burnes had walked was another Cardinals switch hitter, Dexter Fowler, in the fourth inning on Sept. 24, 2020, in St. Louis. Later that inning, Burnes had left with a back injury that ended his season.
This time, Burnes, just off the COVID-19 injured list, was pinch hit for in the fifth inning.
Goldschmidt walked and Arenado singled to open the sixth against reliever Drew Rasmussen. But Carpenter struck out and Tyler O’Neill grounded to second baseman Kolten Wong, who bobbled the ball and had only a play at first, with Goldschmidt and Arenado moving up to third and second, respectively.
When Rasmussen ran the count to 3-1 on Bader, ball four was intentional, loading the bases for Andrew Knizner, who flied to deep right.
Flaherty had to dodge more difficulty in the sixth after Vogelbach doubled to right center. But, as Flaherty surged to the 101-pitch mark in his final inning, he left with the lead. Shaw struck out, Avisail Garcia grounded out and Narvaez flied to deep center.
The Cardinals missed a chance to forge farther ahead in the seventh. Pinch hitter Justin Williams walked before being forced by Edman, who dashed to third on Carlson’s single to right off lefthander Brent Suter.
Goldschmidt flied to short center, where Cain made the catch. Edman was waved home by Warner but cut down by Cain for the final out. If Edman had been held, Arenado would have been the scheduled hitter but no doubt would have been walked with the light-hitting Carpenter up next.
Giovanny Gallegos, who rested on Wednesday when the game got away late after Gallegos had pitched two innings on Tuesday, had a scoreless seventh, walking one.
Brewers second baseman Wong turned in a highlight-reel play like so many he had made in St. Louis to snuff out another Cardinals threat in the eighth.
The first two hitters, Arenado and Carpenter, reached base by hit and walk before O’Neill struck out for the third time and Bader hit into a forceout. Knizner grounded a potential run-scoring hit up the middle but Wong flashed behind second, backhanded the ball, jumped and threw out Knizner at first.
Genesis Cabrera had a tidy eighth for the Cardinals and Alex Reyes knocked off his 11th save in 11 tries in the ninth.
