Brewers TM
It was just birds of a different feather for the Milwaukee Brewers. After taking two out of three against the Orioles in Baltimore, the Crew welcomed the Cardinals from St. Louis in the 2022 home opener at American Family Field Thursday evening and they sent the sellout crowd of more than 42,000 home happy with their most complete game of the season.
The 5-1 victory had good performances at the plate and in the field. Starter Brandon Woodruff bounced back from giving up a career high tying 7 runs in his season debut against the Cubs, by limiting St. Louis to zero runs on three hits over five innings to earn the victory. He was in trouble only once, in the third when he had runners on second and third with just one out. Facing Paul Goldschmidt, Woodruff wasn’t given any help by home plate umpire Lance Barrett who squeezed the strike zone. Goldschmidt hit a roller to short that looked like it would end the threat but catcher interference gave him first to load the bases. Woodruff got out of the jam by getting Tyler O’Neil to fly to right. The top four in the St. Louis order, coming in leading the National League in batting average, went a combined 1 for 16. Trevor Gott gave the Brewers two scoreless innings of relief before giving way to Jandel Gustave who finished the game. While he did serve up an 8th inning solo home run to number nine hitter Tommy Erdman to spoil the shutout, the Brewer bats got more than enough done early in the game.
Veteran Adam Wainwright has 20 career victories against Milwaukee in his career but the offense made hard contact right out of the gate. Kolton Wong led off the bottom of the first with a triple into the right field corner and would score on Andrew McCutcheon’s two out, RBI single. Omar Narvaez ripped his first home of the season into the right field bleachers in the second inning and he would add an RBI double in a two run third to make it 4-0. Jace Peterson in the number nine slot of the Brewer order got on base three times and after a 6th inning walk, he stole second and came home on Wong’s RBI single to finish the scoring.
The Brewers (4-3) have climbed above .500 for the first time in the young season and trail the Chicago Cubs by a half game in the NL Central. Freddy Peralta will face Miles Mikolas in game two of the four game weekend series Friday night.
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