Brewers drop series to NL Central-foe Cards

ST. LOUIS -- If you’re the Brewers, you’re hoping Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to the Cardinals doesn’t come back to bite in the end.

In a quirk of scheduling that reflects MLB’s more balanced schedule, these National League Central rivals won’t meet again until the second half of September, when both teams hope to be contending for the division. Maybe it will be close. Maybe the clubs’ head-to-head record will matter, since that determines division tiebreakers. And maybe everyone will be looking back on the rubber match of this three-game series at Busch Stadium, in which the Cardinals prevailed thanks to a series of breaks, one big blast from Paul DeJong off Brewers ace Corbin Burnes and Milwaukee’s 0-for-9 showing with runners in scoring position.

“They outplayed us in this series,” said Burnes. “They smacked us around the first night, we responded well [Tuesday] night and then we came out and played flat tonight and they just beat us. They were a better baseball team again tonight.”

As a result, the teams are 3-3 against each other this season with seven games to come at the end.

“They matter,” said Christian Yelich, who missed the last two games with a stiff back. “I don't really see either team being, like, plus or minus seven games on each other, so there's a lot of ground you can either make up or lose in a short amount of time. So, yeah, to win the season series against them is really important.”

Said Cardinals star Nolan Arenado: “They’ve got a good team, but we’ve got a lot of games [remaining] this year. We know it, they know it and it’s going to be tough. I would assume that it’s going to come down to the wire again, just like it has the last few years.”

Wednesday’s game unfolded by a wire-thin margin, time after time.

In the top of the third with a runner at third and the Cardinals leading, 1-0, Willy Adames hit a two-out bouncer up the middle and dashed to first. Cards second baseman Nolan Gorman came across the bag to retire Adames by a hair.

In the fourth, Tyrone Taylor thought he’d tied the game with a solo home run. That’s how the umpires called it, but upon review they determined that the baseball never cleared the wall. Taylor returned to second base, where he remained.

“There’s a lot of plays that the inches matter,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said, “and unfortunately, it was just a couple of inches short.”

And in the sixth, with Burnes back on track after a scare in the fourth, Alec Burleson chopped a one-out bouncer to first baseman Rowdy Tellez that had Tellez thinking of an inning-ending double play. When he turned to look toward second base, however, Tellez saw the Cardinals’ Brendan Donovan running at the edge of the infield grass. Tellez took the out at first rather than risk hitting Donovan in the back.

Thus, the inning continued for DeJong’s two-run home run and a 3-0 St. Louis lead.

“That’s a legal play,” said Counsell of Donovan’s path. “That’s good base running and it’s perfectly legal.”

“Looking back, I think in that situation I’m better off taking a chance making that throw than eating it,” Tellez said. “But that’s a mistake I live with.”

Of course, the Brewers could have erased any of those close calls with a well-timed double to the gap or a home run. They had nine chances with runners in scoring position.

Those hits never came. They finished 2-for-21 with runners in scoring position in the series, including 0-for-9 Wednesday against a series of Cardinals pitchers leading with left-hander Matthew Liberatore in his 2023 debut.

The Cardinals accomplished what they set out to do, narrowing the gap between the NL Central’s current first-and-last-place teams. The Brewers sit 6 1/2 games ahead of the Cardinals.

It will be four months before they meet again: Sept. 18-21 in St. Louis and Sept. 26-28 in Milwaukee.

“This one is going to sting a little more because we don’t play them until September,” Burnes said. “We’ve got to go out and play good baseball. We have stretches where we play really well, and then we have stretches where we come out and play flat and lose some series that we probably shouldn’t lose. We’ll regroup. We have an off-day and then get after it with [the Rays], on paper the best team in baseball.”

Then comes four months of watching the Cardinals from afar to see whether they continue digging out of their early-season hole. St. Louis has won eight of its past 10 games.

“It’s just the nature of the schedule this year,” Counsell said. “So, we’ll see them in September, I guess.”