St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) – Lorenzo Cain doubled, tripled, drove in one and scored twice to back 8 1/3 solid innings from Randy Wolf, as the Milwaukee Brewers held on for a 3-2 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, earning a sweep of a brief two-game set at Busch Stadium.
Alcides Escobar added a sacrifice fly and George Kottaras knocked in the other run for Milwaukee, which has won four of six. Escobar exited with a leg injury with two outs in the ninth.
Wolf (10-9) notched his third consecutive win after limiting the Cardinals to one run on three hits. The left-hander walked one and fanned four. Trevor Hoffman struck out Brendan Ryan with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth to lock down the win. It was Hoffman’s 598th career save, which extends an MLB record.
Matt Holliday had an RBI double and scored a run for the Cardinals, who tied a season-high with four straight losses.
Adam Wainwright (17-7), suffered his first home loss of the year for yielding three runs on seven hits with one walk and seven strikeouts over seven innings.
With the Brewers in front 3-0, Wolf gave up a one-out double to Albert Pujols in the bottom of the ninth and was promptly lifted in favor of John Axford. The young closer was greeted by a run-scoring double by Holliday, then hit Skip Schumaker with a pitch. After Yadier Molina took a called third strike at the knees, Aaron Miles hit a chopper to first that Prince Fielder played into an error to make it a 3-2 game and leave runners on the corners. Pinch-hitter Colby Rasmus then drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases
Brewers manager Ken Macha elected to go to his bullpen for Hoffman, who fanned Ryan on three pitches to end the game.
Starting pitching limited the offensive chances until the Brewers broke through for a run in the fifth. Cain reached with a leadoff double to center and stole third with one out. Kottaras then hit a slow roller to Wainwright, who was unable to field cleanly and Cain scampered home.
The Brewers tacked on two more in the seventh. Fielder singled leading off and scored two batters later on Cain’s triple to center. Escobar followed with a sac fly for a 3-0 game.
Meanwhile, Wolf retired 10 in a row before hitting Ryan with two outs in the eighth. The crafty left-hander then retired Felipe Lopez on a force out.
Despite the loss, the Cardinals have still won 15 of their last 26 versus the Brewers…Wainwright had won three straight starts and seven of his past eight decisions coming in. The right-hander saw his scoreless streak end at 25 2/3 innings. He dropped to 11-1 at Busch Stadium this season.