The St.Louis CardinaLs hosted the Milwaukee Brewers in beautiful Busch Stadium, a lovely park to sweep in. The Brewers have the best road record in baseball at 10-2 and are winning the NLC division with a 14-6 record. The Brewers showed great defense and the bullpen took care of business. A fun talking point of the series was the brother battle between two catchers: Brewers William Contreras versus older brother Willson Contreras for the Cardinals. I’d say our Contreras won that battle but maybe I’m a little bias.

Game 1 To begin the series our ace “Freddy Fastball” Peralta absolutely bullied the cardinals lineup. He pitched a shutout for 6 innings with 7 K’s and 4 hits. In the 2nd inning with two runners on and two outs, Willson Contreras attempted to steal home on a third strike pass ball on his brother William Contreras. William tossed the ball to Freddy who got the 3rd out while being tackled by Willson at home. DAWG. Held 3 runners risking his body. He continued to dominate for the rest of his time on the mound. Bottom of 6th, two outs, bases were loaded with big hitter Nolan Gorman at the plate it felt like a sticky situation. An unphased Freddy got the last out with Gorman swinging at a nasty riser. 100 pitches. 6 shutout innings.

The bullpen held the Cardinals to 1 run in the 9th which tied the game pushing it into extra innings. The one run by the Brewers was scored in the 3rd by Blake Perkins getting on with a double, to then be driven home by a William Contreras double. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the series. In extra innings, this situation was pretty much repeated as Blake Perkins started at 2nd base and was singled home by William Contreras. Hoby Milner starting the 10th went two-up two-down and intentionally walked Willson Contreras. This was probably a wise choice, we didn’t need Willson to copy his brother. Milner had a great battle for the last out with another tough at bat put on by Nolan Gorman. Milner got his 1st career save with a curve ball to catch Gorman looking. The Brewers finish the game with a win 2-1.

The Contreras brothers captured the spotlight of the game. William attempted to pick off Willson at 1st base, then Willson attempted to steal home off of William only to be stopped by Freddy. Willson got on base three times, once with a hit continuing his 13-game hitting streak and William had just come off of a 12-game hitting streak. William had both of the RBI’s of the game, including the winning run. It must be wild to get to play your brother who’s also a catcher and a division rival. It’s awesome that we get to watch them go back and forth two more times this season.

Game 2 DL Hall starting on the mound for the Brew Crew gave up one run in the 1st inning walking Willson Contreras who scored on a double from Nolan Arenado. He then had a rough battle in bottom of the 2nd. He gave up 4 runs total in the inning with Lars Nootbaar hitting a double, Jordan Walker drew a base on balls, Michael Siani singled, Brendan Donovan scored Nootbaar on a sacrifice fly, Paul Goldschmidt grounded out scoring Walker, and finally Willson Contreras scored Siani on a single. Hall was able to end the exhausting inning striking out Iván Herrera. Pat Murphy decided to keep Hall in moving onto the 3rd where Hall was able to bounce back with a three-up three-down inning. He even stuck around in the 4th long enough to snatch two outs before getting relieved by Bryse Wilson.

A great experience and learning opportunity for Hall, although this is his third year in the majors this is his first season as a starter. When things got rough he was able to battle back and still help his team by putting down a scoreless inning with a few extra outs. Wilson and the bullpen took care of business only letting up 1 run in the 9th with bases loaded.

Contreras got the bats going in the 1st inning with a single and Rhys Hoskins hit a 2-run homer to put the Brewers up 2-0. The dangerous bottom of the order Blake Perkins, Brice Turang, and Jackson Chourio wreaked havoc among the Cardinals’ defense the entire game.

In the 4th, Perkins got on with his third double of the series. He scored with Turang and Chourio hitting back to back home runs! This put the Brewers up 5-4. The Brew Crew exploded in top of the 6th. Chourio walked and Sal Frelick moved him to third on a single. Contreras got his 20th RBI of the season batting in Chourio and moving Frelick to third on a single. Willy Adames doubled scoring Frelick then Hoskins scored Contreras on a single. Adames stole home on a wild pitch to finish the fun, scoring the 9th run for the Brewers. The next inning Chourio is walked then goes on to steal second and scores off of a throwing error to first in an attempt to force out Frelick.

Finally in the 9th, danger strikes again with a Pesky Perkins single to begin the inning followed by a Trouble Turang double. Perkins scores on a hit by Oh-No Chourio. Chourio has got on base all four at-bats including a homerun. Freaky Frelick scores Turang while grounding into a double play. Brewers end the game after crushing the Cardinals 12-5.

Game 3 was a pitcher’s battle between Brewers Colin Rea and Cardinals Sonny Gray. It got a little sticky for Rea with the bases loaded in the first inning. Blake Perkins saved the day by robbing Lars Nootbaar of a grand slam with a catch at the top of the wall to end the inning and prevent disaster. Rea pitched a shutout in 5 IP and Gray was about to get the win with his own shutout of 6 IP but Perkins and Turang had something to say about it.

Perkins and Turang had back to back singles with Perkins using his legs to get an extra base at third. Turang stole second with Owen Miller up to bat who hit a clutch single driving in both runners for his first hit and RBI’s of the season. Turang’s steal was his tenth of the season tying Elly De La Cruz for first in the league in an emerging stolen base race. The Brew Crew finish the game 2-0 shutting out the Cardinals and taking out the brooms for a series sweep against the division rivals.

The Brewers look to play another division rival on this road trip and say hello to our old friend Rowdy Tellez in Pittsburgh. The Pirates were winning the division to start the season but are now 11-11 in 4th place going 2-8 in their last 10 games. The Pirates are desperate for some wins so it looks like the trend of Brewers having fun division matchups will continue.

-Gracie

Photo Credit; Jefferson City News Tribune,

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