MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers are comfortably in control of the National League Central, but manager Pat Murphy sounded angsty again on Wednesday afternoon. He’s been coaching and managing baseball teams since 1983, and he knows how quickly a hot club can go cold.

Murphy also knows how quickly a cold streak can spell doom in a short postseason series.

“I haven’t loved a lot of what I’ve witnessed,” Murphy said before the Brewers played, and lost, an extra-inning game for the third time in four days, this time falling, 3-2, to the Cardinals in 10 innings at American Family Field. “I love the guys and I love the way they’ve competed and put themselves in a really good position. But you have to make it constant. You can't take your foot off the gas. You can’t coast uphill.

“And in my mind, we have an uphill battle.”

The uphill battle continued on Wednesday night when the Brewers’ young lineup went 0-for-15 with runners in scoring position during the course of a 10-inning loss, which came on the heels of the same group going 1-for-22 at the plate over the final seven-plus innings of a 12-inning loss to the Cardinals on Tuesday, and 0-for-21 to finish an 11-inning loss in Cincinnati on Sunday.

With runs that hard to come by, Milwaukee couldn’t afford starter Colin Rea issuing two run-scoring walks in a shaky first inning. He bounced back to keep the game at 2-0 through the fourth before DL Hall followed with four electric innings of relief (no hits, two walks, six strikeouts) in his first appearance since shifting to a hybrid role.

Devin Williams struck out a pair in a scoreless ninth.

“Tonight I wasn’t aggressive,” Rea said. “I was trying to make too good of pitches, and it cost us those two runs.”

The better innings that followed meant Brewers hitters had plenty of chances, but they were limited to a run-scoring groundout in the seventh inning for their only tally against Cardinals ace Sonny Gray, and Eric Haase’s tying homer leading off the eighth.

Later in the eighth inning, the Brewers had the go-ahead runner at third with one out, but couldn’t score him. They couldn’t score the automatic runner in the 10th inning, either.

So, Milwaukee saw its division lead trimmed to nine games over the Cubs, who beat the Pirates on Wednesday night in a combined no-hitter.

“We had six players in the lineup today who are playing in their first full season and I think in those situations, they tend to try to do too much,” Murphy said. “I guess this is a phase we’re going through and a lot of it is youth, but there are a lot of bright spots at the same time.

“It’s just very, very frustrating. We haven’t had this stretch of that frustration. The Yankees came in and beat the tar out of us twice [in April], but that’s different. When you lose like this, it hurts a lot more -- especially for a young group.”

The game was decided in the top of the 10th with a two-out RBI single from Cardinals pinch-hitter Luken Baker. The hit came after Murphy and the Brewers elected to have their right-handed reliever, Joel Payamps, intentionally walk right-handed-hitting Nolan Arenado ahead of left-handed-hitting Brendan Donovan.

When the Brewers brought in lefty Hoby Milner, the Cards countered with a right-handed hitter in Baker to reclaim the platoon advantage. Baker bounced a go-ahead single into center field.

Explaining his thinking during that sequence, Murphy said, “Arenado is swinging the bat great. Payamps has pitched a lot and he’s warmed up a lot so he didn’t have much fuel. And they don’t always hit for Donovan in that situation; Donovan’s been a great hitter for them, he’s their five-hole hitter, but they don’t always hit for him.

“I looked at the two other guys they could hit there -- [Jordan] Walker or Baker -- and I liked Hoby’s changeup. He got the job done, he got the ground ball. You can criticize that move, you can, but I trusted Hoby would throw strikes and I trusted the offspeed would get Baker on the ground.”

Said Haase, the catcher: “Great pitch. You’re looking for a ground ball right there.”

The ground ball found the wrong spot.

Just like Rea’s first-inning misfires.

“That’s the kind of stuff that’s going on with us right now,” Murphy said. “We’ve got to weather it. We were bound to hit a spot like this. But here’s the thing: We’re competing in every game.”