Jacob Misiorowski doing incredible things has become shockingly routine this season, especially this month. He came into his start today not having allowed a run in four outings covering 24 1/3 innings in May. But he looked as good as he has at any point during that streak today, if not better, before he finally allowed a sole run in the sixth inning. His offense, meanwhile, jumped on Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore early and handed the Brewers’ pitching staff everything they’d need, and the Brewers took the first game of the series with their division rivals.
Misiorowski brought the heat in the first inning. His first six pitches were all at least 103 mph. Unfortunately, four of them were balls, so Cardinals leadoff hitter JJ Wetherholt reached on a walk. After that, though, Misiorowski didn’t throw another ball in the inning. He struck out Iván Herrera and Alec Burleson on three pitches each before getting Jordan Walker to ground out on the first pitch of the at-bat.
The Brewers also got a leadoff walk after Jackson Chourio worked back from a 1-2 count. Liberatore almost walked Brice Turang, too, but came back to strike him out. Chourio should’ve been the second out when Liberatore threw over to first with Chourio stealing, but Burleson, the first baseman, made a weak throw to second base, and Chourio just beat it (on a play that needed to be reviewed in order to make the correct safe call). That turned out to be big, as William Contreras followed with an RBI single, and Christian Yelich followed that with his fourth homer of the season. The Brewers handed Misiorowski an early 3-0 lead.
The Cardinals didn’t have any better luck in the second inning. Miz struck out Nolan Gorman, got a groundout from Masyn Winn, and blew away Bryan Torres on three pitches. Blake Perkins struck out to start the bottom of the second. Garrett Mitchell picked up a hit on a grounder up the middle, one which Masyn Winn was surprisingly able to glove despite it hitting the bag at second base, but he wouldn’t have had a throw even if it hadn’t hit the base. After a Joey Ortiz strikeout, Mitchell was thrown out trying to steal second to end the inning.
Miz looked untouchable in the third. After a first-pitch ball to Pedro Pagés, Miz nearly got an immaculate-inning-minus-one, as he struck out Pagés and Victor Scott II on the next six pitches (including a filthy backdoor curveball on 0-2 to get Scott looking) and then got ahead of Wetherholt 0-2. Misiorowski did end up needing a couple more pitches, but he struck out Wetherholt, too. After walking the leadoff hitter, Misiorowski retired the next nine in a row with seven strikeouts… and needed only 30 pitches to do it.
Liberatore decided to do his best Misiorowski imitation in the bottom of the third, and struck out Chourio, Turang, and Contreras in order. Miz had another 1-2-3 inning with a couple of strikeouts in the fourth — Burleson hit one to the warning track, the first real contact for the Cardinals of the game, but Mitchell caught it without much trouble.
Liberatore continued his strikeout streak by getting Yelich to start the bottom of the fourth, but Andrew Vaughn lined a fastball into the right-field corner for a one-out double. Rengifo followed with a single into center, but Vaughn had to pause to make sure it fell and thus had to hold at third base. Unfortunately, Vaughn was caught in a rundown and became the second out on the next pitch when Perkins hit a hard grounder right at the third baseman Gorman. With runners on first and second and two out, Mitchell battled but struck out looking on a tough slider on the low-outside corner.
Misiorowski picked up his 10th strikeout to start the fifth, then got Winn on a weak groundout to first. Torres nearly got the Cardinals’ first hit with two outs, but Rengifo reached up and snagged his soft line drive to end the inning.
Ortiz led off the bottom of the inning with a single to left. Chourio hit a ground ball up the middle that was hit a little too softly for Winn to turn two on, so Chourio replaced Ortiz at first base. After Turang struck out looking (Liberatore’s career-high 10th strikeout), Chourio took off for second with Contreras batting — Chourio probably would’ve been out with a good throw, but the throw bounced into center field, and Chourio made it to third. Contreras walked a couple pitches later — with first base open, Liberatore didn’t seem all that interested in pitching to him — but Yelich grounded out to second to end the inning.
Pagés, leading off the sixth, finally ended Misiorowski’s no-hit bid with a blooper that landed just out of the reach of Turang in right field. After Scott traded places with Pagés on a fielder’s choice, Wetherholt got the Cards’ first non-cheap hit, with a hard grounder through the right side that put runners on the corners with one out. Suddenly, the Cardinals had the tying run at the plate. A weak grounder from Herrera resulted in the second out, but also scored Scott from third, and a grounder by Burleson ended the inning. St. Louis was on the board, and Misiorowski’s 29 1/3 inning scoreless streak was over, but the Brewers still had a 3-1 lead.
Liberatore, who crossed 100 pitches in the fifth, was done in the sixth, and his replacement was a lefty making his major league debut, Brycen Mautz. He was rudely greeted by Vaughn, who lined a single into right, and after Vaughn advanced to second on a wild pitch, Rengifo walked. Perkins put a charge into one, but he hit it to the deepest part of the ballpark, and Scott caught it with a leap (that was a little unnecessary, maybe) on the warning track, as Vaughn tagged and got to third. That set up runners on the corners with one out for Mitchell, who blooped one into left that landed just beyond the outstretched glove of the diving Scott. Vaughn scored from third, and Milwaukee still had runners on first and second with one out.
Mautz spiked a curveball with Ortiz at the plate that enabled both runners to advance to scoring position. Ortiz struck out, though — the first of Mautz’s career, and also a big one in the game situation — and Chourio struck out, too. The Brewers did finally get an add-on run, but it definitely felt like they’d left at least one more on the table.
Misiorowski was out for the seventh with 81 pitches on his ledger. He got Walker to fly out to center, then struck out Gorman and Winn to end the inning. The strikeout of Winn was Misiorowski’s 12th of the day, matching a career high, and it put an exclamation point on the end of another brilliant outing for the Brewer ace. He finished his day with one run allowed on two hits and one walk, and he lowered his ERA to 1.83.
Turang walked to start the bottom of the seventh. Contreras flew out to right on a pitch that he clearly thought he should’ve hit over the fence, but Yelich hit a base hit up the middle that was followed by a deep drive by Vaughn that bounced off the warning track in the left-field corner and went over the wall. The ground-rule nature of the double was unfortunate, as Yelich would surely have scored on the play; he tried to score on the next play, when Rengifo hit a medium-deep fly ball to right, and initially appeared to have done so. But on review, Yelich’s lead foot bounced up off the plate as he slid, and he was called out. Milwaukee had added another, though, and led 5-1 heading to the eighth inning.
Aaron Ashby came in to relieve Misiorowski in the eighth. The Cardinals squared him up pretty well, but the Brewers’ defense did what they needed to, as Torres grounded out to third, Pagés flew out to the warning track, and pinch-hitter José Fermín popped out behind second base.
Mautz pitched was out for a third inning in his debut in the bottom of the eighth against the bottom of the Brewer order. Perkins and Mitchell both grounded out, and Ortiz flew out to center. The Brewers headed to the ninth with a four-run lead.
Ashby didn’t need it. Wetherholt grounded out, Herrera struck out, and Burleson popped out. The Brewers won 5-1.
Misiorowski, as he has been, was the game’s big star. But several Brewers had solid days offensively, too, even if the team couldn’t manage more than five runs: every batter except Perkins reached base today (and even Perkins made solid contact a couple of times), and four Brewers had multiple hits. Yelich had the game’s biggest hit, the first-inning two-run homer, and he also hit a single later on. Vaughn had three hits on the day, including his RBI double. Rengifo added two hits and a walk, and Mitchell had two singles and an RBI.
It was a nice win to start the series against the team closest to them in the NL Central standings. The series continues tomorrow night, with Kyle Harrison taking on Michael McGreevy. That game is at 6:40 p.m.
