Cardinals 3 – Brewers 1

Complete Recap

On a beautiful day in St. Louis, the Cardinals take the field to beat the Brewers in a day for the mother’s.

The stadium was packed with a crowd of 40,125 to watch the series finale. For the two teams packed with offensive juggernauts this entire series has been a relatively low scoring for the most part and the greatest highlight has mainly been the pitching. Jaime flirted with a perfect game Friday until the 8th, Yovani Gallardo almost had a no-no Saturday in a 1 hit affair, and Sunday was again pretty uneventful offensively.

The Cardinals threatened early in the first inning to try and jump out to an early lead, only to strand the runners and lead to a slow couple of innings up until the 5th.

Nick Punto led off the inning with a single, Tyler Greene singles, and Ryan Theriot grounds out to advance Punto and Greene. The next batter was the seemingly uneventful Colby Rasmus who has been pulling more weight lately to be a bigger run contributor and he doubles to drive the two runs in to help the Cardinals finally jump out to a 2-0 lead.

The 6th begins on Lance Berkman reaching base on the strength of a fielding error, no outs and Lance at second. Yadier is the next batter and he lays down a sac bunt to advance Berkman to 3rd with no outs. Nick Punto pops a fly just deep enough to center and Lance goes home to add another run on the board, 3-0 Cardinals.

The game went back to seemingly uneventful to the top of the 9th. The 8th it looked as if McClellan might be pulled as he eclipsed 100 pitches, but they let him finish the inning and he goes to start the top of the 9th.

Prince Fielder is the first batter and he singles to right and Tony decides that is enough and Kyle will not get the complete game. Eduardo Sanchez takes the mound and Casey McGehee walks to gets runners on first and second. Betancourt strikes out, Lucroy strikes out, and all seems to be lost for the Brewers with two on and two out.

The next batter is Carlos Gomez and he is walked to load the bases. The next batter is Craig Counsell and after a 13 pitch battle he singles to Ryan Theriot who stops the ball and looks to stop the bleeding and luckily only allowed the one run, 3-1 Cardinals. Fernando Salas comes on in relief and throws three straight swinging strikes to Rickie Weeks and the Cardinals win.

Winning Pitcher: Kyle McClellan (5-0 : 3.30 ERA)

Losing Pitcher: Chris Narveson (1-3 : 4.38 ERA)

Save: Fernando Salas (3 SV : 1.42 ERA)