ST. LOUIS -- The Brewers had a three-run lead in hand and were five innings from their winningest road trip in nearly 50 years. 

Then the Cardinals came storming back against a suddenly wobbly Brandon Woodruff. 

Answering the Brewers’ four-run fourth inning off Jon Lester and then some, the Cardinals scored five runs in a go-ahead fifth against Woodruff in his second straight subpar start and avoided a three-game Milwaukee sweep by taking the series finale, 8-4, at Busch Stadium on Thursday. 

Tyler O’Neill’s go-ahead, three-run home run sailed a Statcast-projected 450 feet for a St. Louis lead and Lars Nootbaar made it back-to-back homers on offspeed pitches down the middle when he hit a shot for insurance against Woodruff, who surrendered a season-high six runs on the same day the Brewers placed fellow National League Cy Young Award hopeful Freddy Peralta on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. 

“This is the hard part of the year right now,” Woodruff said.

That’s especially true coming off the pandemic-shortened 2020 regular season, but the Brewers to date have managed the return to a full slate as well as any club. Woodruff gave thanks Thursday for the fact that he’s healthy and feeling strong, and pitching for a team that went into the night with a chance for what would have been, according to Elias, only the third nine-win road trip in franchise history. The 1973 Brewers went an incredible 11-1 on a four-city trip in early June of that season, part of a 15-1 run that wasn’t too shabby for a club that finished with a 74-88 record. And the 1980 Brewers had a 9-5 trip to -- deep breath -- Detroit, Texas, Kansas City, Oakland and California, also in June. 

But with the Cardinals’ comeback, the Brewers settled for 8-2 on their successful jaunt to Chicago (4-0), Pittsburgh (2-1) and St. Louis (2-1) and headed home with an 8 1/2-game lead over the second-place Reds in the National League Central standings. The Cardinals are 11 games back. 

“Our team has been playing so unbelievably well, and I think we’re such a dangerous team,” Woodruff said. “We’ll take a deep breath after this one and get back to work.”

Before Thursday, Woodruff had allowed more than three runs in a start only twice this season, a five-run outing against the Rockies at Coors Field on June 17 and a four-run outing against the Mets at Citi Field on July 5. Woodruff’s ERA entering the night was 2.18, third best among Major League qualifiers to the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler (2.09) and Brewers teammate Corbin Burnes (2.13).

Now Woodruff’s ERA is 2.48 after he was charged with six earned runs on eight hits in five innings with one walk and four strikeouts. He threw 89 pitches. Six days earlier at Wrigley Field, Woodruff needed 74 pitches to get through a three-inning slog against the Cubs before manager Craig Counsell went to the bullpen in what turned into a 17-4 Brewers win.

Counsell said he saw no comparison between that outing and Thursday’s, when Woodruff surrendered a run in the first inning but then avoided further damage until the decisive fifth.

“He just didn’t make a couple pitches tonight. That goes in April and August,” Counsell said. “That doesn’t change, and that’s not going to change. If you don’t make pitches to hitters with a lot of power, you’re going to pay for it. That’s what happened tonight. This doesn’t have anything to do with the time of year or anything like that.”

Woodruff lamented those two misplaced pitches.

“Pretty disappointing,” said Woodruff, who’d been supported by Kolten Wong’s two-run single and RBI doubles from Manny Piña and Willy Adames an inning earlier. “When I needed to make some pitches, I just made some bad pitches. A hanging curveball to O'Neill and he did what he was supposed to with it. Then the changeup that was right down the middle to Nootbaar.

“That's the tough part about a full season. For the most part this year, I've been able to make pitches in those big spots but tonight I just didn't do it, and it stings because these are big games. These are the games that we need to win. I know that we've been playing well. You have to get back to what you were doing well for most of the night, erase those two pitches and move on.”

Woodruff’s next scheduled start falls in another intra-division series. The Reds are in Milwaukee for three games next week.

“There’s no question it was a good road trip. We played well,” Counsell said. “Three road series and you win all three series and throw a sweep in there -- a good result, all in all. On to the next challenge.”