Cardinals Look to Avoid Milwaukee Sweep Before Long Homestand
Cardinal Chronicle
Cardinals Look to Avoid Milwaukee Sweep Before Long Homestand
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur
The St. Louis Cardinals have one more afternoon in Milwaukee, and they need to make it count.
After dropping the first two games of their three-game series against the Brewers, the Cardinals enter Wednesday’s finale at American Family Field looking to avoid a sweep, settle themselves after a frustrating road trip, and head home with something more than two quiet losses and a few bruised feelings.
St. Louis is 29-24 overall and 1-3 on the current road trip after splitting two games in Cincinnati around a rainout before losing the first two in Milwaukee. The Cardinals will fly home after Wednesday’s game, enjoy an open date Thursday, then begin their longest homestand of the first half Friday night against the Chicago Cubs. Texas and Cincinnati will follow at Busch Stadium.
Wednesday’s matchup is scheduled for 12:40 p.m. CT, with right-hander Dustin May getting the start for St. Louis. The Brewers had not listed a probable starter in the Cardinals’ game notes. May enters at 3-5 with a 5.00 ERA and will be making his 11th start as a Cardinal.
The standings add plenty of weight to the afternoon. Milwaukee enters at 32-20 and leads the National League Central by 3 1/2 games over St. Louis. The Cardinals remain in second place and are 16-11 on the road, including 5-3 against NL Central opponents.
There is also a little history hanging over this one. St. Louis is trying to avoid its first three-game sweep in Milwaukee since June 2011. That season, of course, the Cardinals later beat the NL Central champion Brewers in the NLCS on the way to their 11th World Championship. Since American Family Field opened in 2001, the Cardinals have been swept in Milwaukee only twice.
The Cardinals have been in this position before this season. Only twice have they lost the first two games of a series. The first came in Detroit from April 3-5, when they salvaged the finale with a 5-3 win on Sunday Night Baseball. The second came against Seattle at Busch Stadium. Wednesday gives them another chance to avoid letting a bad series become a full-blown sweep.
For May, the setting carries its own storyline.
The 28-year-old right-hander returns to the ballpark where he suffered the first major injury of his career. On May 1, 2021, while pitching for the Dodgers, May exited after 1 2/3 innings at American Family Field and later required season-ending right elbow surgery. Wednesday will mark his first appearance against the Brewers and his first outing in Milwaukee since that day.
May’s season has been uneven on the surface, but there is more to the line than the ERA. He has six quality starts in 10 outings, tied for 10th in the National League, and he has pitched into the sixth inning in each of his last eight starts while allowing three runs or fewer in that span. He also has received one run of support or fewer in four of his last five starts, with only five total runs of support during that stretch.
That last number may be the biggest issue for the Cardinals on Wednesday. The offense has gone cold at the wrong time. Milwaukee took the opener 5-1 behind Jacob Misiorowski, then shut out St. Louis 6-0 on Tuesday behind Kyle Harrison. The Cardinals have scored one run in two games in the series, and no pitching plan works for long when the bats are that quiet.
The formula is not complicated. St. Louis needs early traffic, better situational hitting and something from the middle of the order. The Cardinals are 24-5 when scoring four or more runs this season, but just 2-15 when scoring two runs or fewer. That tells the story plainly enough. When this lineup gets the game into a real baseball fight, St. Louis usually has enough pitching and bullpen depth to finish it. When the offense disappears, the margin vanishes with it.
The bullpen should be available if May can hand the game over with a lead or within reach. Four key Cardinals relievers — Riley O’Brien, JoJo Romero, George Soriano and Ryne Stanek — have pitched only once over the last seven days. All four last worked in Saturday’s doubleheader after previously pitching the Tuesday before against Pittsburgh.
Behind the plate, Pedro Pagés remains one of the Cardinals’ bright spots. He enters Wednesday with a Major League-best 12 caught stealings and set a career high Monday by throwing out two Brewers attempting to steal.
The Cardinals also received another encouraging rehab note from Lars Nootbaar, who continued his minor league assignment Tuesday night with Double-A Springfield. Nootbaar went 1-for-4 with a double and an RBI while playing eight innings in left field. Across seven rehab games with Palm Beach, Springfield and Memphis, he is batting .316 with two home runs, four RBIs, two walks and three strikeouts.
But Wednesday is not about rehab updates, historical footnotes or what comes next at Busch Stadium.
It is about Milwaukee.
The Brewers have already won the series. They have already pushed the Cardinals around for two nights. They have already widened the division gap. Now the Cardinals have one afternoon left to take the broom out of Milwaukee’s hands and remind the Brewers that this Central race is not going to be handed to anybody in May.
A win would not erase the first two games. It would not solve every offensive concern. It would not make the road trip pretty.
But it would matter.
For a team heading home to face the Cubs, Rangers and Reds, one win in Milwaukee could change the tone of the next week. One clean start from May, one early rally, one late lead turned over to a rested bullpen — that is the assignment.
The Cardinals do not need to talk their way out of Milwaukee, they need to fight their way out.
Credit: AP - Both benches cleared during the fifth inning of a baseball game between the Milwaukee Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
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