St. Louis Cardinals defeat Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 – MLB Update
Albert Pujols had a solo homer on Thursday, August 11 to help the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 5-2 at Busch Stadium.
For Pujols, his performance was necessary to compensate for last two days. "The last couple of days, no hits," Pujols said. "Today, four hits. What did I change? Nothing. I'm just trying to be consistent like I have. I think anyone would love to have those
numbers I have after 100-plus games."
The team manager went ahead to describe how his team descended in the ballpark on Thursday. "Do or die is the last couple of weeks when the numbers are staring you in the face," La Russa said. "There was a lot of urgency today. We beat a very good pitcher."
As the Milwaukee Brewers had won the first game by 5-3, the second with 5-1, the St. Louis Cardinals came with a different approach on Thursday to face their rivals. Their strategy set to counter the Brewers worked out for the Cardinals.
The Milwaukee Brewers, like their previous two games, had a rather aggressive start on Thursday as well. With the St. Louis Cardinals morale somewhat plummeted due to back to back defeats, the Brewers awaited the opportune moment for opening their bats.
Mark Kotsay and Prince Fielder got a single each in the very first inning to give up a 2-0 lead to the Brewers. Chris Carpenter had to take his time to keep the Brewers’ hitters at bat. However, Yovani Gallardo could not capitalise on the early gains made.
Rafael Furcal and Albert Pujols homered in against Gallardo to level the score by the end of the first inning which saw two hits. The Cardinals then scored the tiebreaking run in the third when Lance Berkman scored another single to give a 3-2 lead to the
Cardinals.
Chris Carpenter, then, did not look behind and kept pitching strong innings, as Gallardo seemed to have lost his efficacy as starter. Albert Pujols scored a single in the fifth to take the lead to 4-2 while David Freese followed by another single to make
it 5-2 for the Cardinals.
The lead got in the fifth inning proved decisive for the Cardinals as Chris Carpenter was able to pitch his other innings strongly and to not allow any run to the Brewers’ hitters.
Chris Carpenter pitched into the eighth inning to maintain the lead. Fernando Salas came as a closer in the ninth and was pretty much successful in pitching a shut-out inning to wrap up the game with a 5-2 win for the Cardinals.
The Cardinals put in a wonderful performance as they managed to restrict the Brewers’ offence from scoring the later innings. The Brewers will be looking to improve their efforts in their next match-up.
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