Brewers walked off by Cardinals in 6-5 loss

Offense comes back late, Murphy gets heated, and Arenado walk-off secures the loss

Box Score

The Brewers took another brutal loss in Saturday’s matchup against the Cardinals. The Brewers’ fell into an early deficit but came back in the ninth inning on Chourio’s game-tying home run, only to take the loss when Nolan Arenado hit a walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning for the 6-5 St. Louis win.

The Brewers surrendered five early runs before scoring their first. Milwaukee’s starter Quinn Priester was unable to provide much depth or resistance against St. Louis. He went a season-high 102 pitches, but still only managed five innings.

Going five innings is a fine result if it’s a clean bill for the bullpen, but he ultimately gave up five runs to the Cardinals by allowing eight hits and three walks,

In the second inning, it was a hard-earned run for the Cardinals to get on the board first. Nolan Gorman led off on a double, but only advanced to third on a groundout and scored on a sacrifice fly. That’s not an insurmountable problem, but the bleeding only continued.

The next inning, Masyn Winn, Lars Nootbaar, and Brendan Donovan all tagged Priester for doubles, giving St. Louis a 3-0 lead while Priester reeled. He gave up two more walks that inning before finally escaping the situation.

In the fourth inning, Priester surrendered three consecutive hits to once again expand the Cardinals lead, this time to a 5-0 deficit. In only tallying two strikeouts, Priester was unable to shut down the Cardinals when he needed to most.

The Brewers’ own offense put together a performance that might win most games, but it only came together in the final inning. They made plenty of hard contact — including 10 hard-hit balls off Sonny Gray — but too often the ball fell to a fielder for them to match the Cardinals pace early in the game.

Milwaukee first scored in the fifth inning. It started, though, with Jake Bauers hitting a hard liner to center field that Victor Scott II caught with a spectacular dive. It was symbolic of many of the struggles of the afternoon, but the Brewers then made their mark. Joey Ortiz and Caleb Durbin combined for a pair of doubles to score their first run.

Brice Turang walked, then Chourio hit a double to make it 5-2. Chourio would have three RBIs throughout the game, bringing his total on the season to 23.

The Brewers pulled another run closer in the fifth inning, but it was an opportunity that lost its potential. With the bases loaded, Joey Ortiz hit a hard liner up the middle. It deflected off Gray’s glove, but second baseman Thomas Saggese made an impressive effort to get the runner out at second. It allowed William Contreras to score, but limited the impact the inning could have had on the game’s outcome. Nonetheless, the Brewers pulled the score to 5-3.

Despite a game with a hit total in the 20s, the most bizarre moment came in the seventh inning on a running fiasco. Chourio was running to second base and took an inward route through the grass. When the first baseman’s throw to second clipped Chourio’s hand, he was ruled out. Pat Murphy — who was already on edge over strike zone calls — came out to argue for a long period but didn’t get ejected despite his frustration. The commentators speculated it might have been because the umpire realized Murphy was correct in debating the call.

In the ninth inning, Chourio put the finishing touch on his wild and impressive game. For his fourth hit of the day, he hit a game-tying home run off closer Ryan Helsley, who earned the save in last night’s game. Chourio’s back-to-back multi-hit efforts have given him a .323/.344/.516 slash line over the last seven games, but it wasn’t enough to lock up the win.

Trevor Megill was tasked with the bottom of the ninth. After recording one out, Arenado caught a high-and-inside fastball for a walk-off home run, ending the game with a 6-5 scoreline.

It’s been a rough week for Milwaukee, now in the middle of a four-game losing streak. There have been opportunities from the Brewers, but the smallest edges can make a big difference, and so they must now look to salvage a win from the series in tomorrow’s finale.

First pitch tomorrow is set for 1:15 p.m. CT. Jose Quintana will get the start for Milwaukee against Erick Fedde.