Cardinals start June with swoon

St. Louis Cardinals start June on wrong foot

Remember the end of May? It was yesterday. All the St. Louis Cardinals‘ troubles seemed so far away.

All right, enough of the Beatles rhyming. Let’s just say the long and winding road of June began with a pothole.

After the Milwaukee Brewers scored to lead off the game, the Cardinals couldn’t find home plate. Neither could Milwaukee. The defensive struggle was on, and it ended with the Brewers winning 1-0 in the opener of a series Monday night at Busch Stadium.

St. Louis (33-17) lost despite getting eight hits off of Milwaukee pitching, led by starter Kyle Lohse. The Cardinals also didn’t get any help from their enemies to the northeast, as the Chicago Cubs dropped the Miami Marlins 5-1 to move within 5-1/2 games of the National League Central lead.

Kolten Wong and Mark Reynolds each had two hits for the Cardinals. Reynolds needed to come through for St. Louis, especially in light of the quad injury to Matt Adams, and he did. It’s too bad no one else stepped to the plate and performed well.

You can’t exactly pin this loss on starter Jaime Garcia. Sure, he dropped to 1-2 overall, but Garcia struck out four and allowed three hits in seven innings of work.

So what was it? Let’s start with lack of run support. The Cardinals had nine innings to make up this deficit. Milwaukee scored one measly run to open the game, and it stuck. These type of games won’t help you keep the NL Central lead, and the Cardinals know it.

All St. Louis can do now is come out and start over on Tuesday.

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The Cardinals return to Busch on Tuesday for an 8:15 p.m. game. Starter Lance Lynn has had issues with the Brew Crew this year, as he allowed seven earned runs on 16 hits in two starts. Milwaukee’s starter was not announced at the time this was written.

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