Steven Matz sure did a 180° from his first start a week ago, cruising through an easy 5.2IP tonight. Matz had it working from the jump, a couple of two-out hits in the first two innings would be the only pressure he really faced.
By the end of the 3rd inning, the strikeouts started to pile on, as Matz would strikeout three Brewers in a row (Adames to end the 3rd, Renfroe and Hiura to open the 4th), all on the sinker.
Adrian Houser was matching the zeros Matz was throwing up through his first 3 innings before running into some command issues in the top of the 4th. Back-to-back one out walks to O’Neill and Arenado had the Cardinals in position to score the games first run. After a Dickerson flyout to Taylor in LF, DeJong would come up and put together the best at bat of the night. DeJong would make Houser work, before lining an rbi 2B into the LF corner to score O’Neill to make it 1-0 Cardinals.
Helsley, Cabrera, Gio would throw the final 3.1 innings. Helsley would get the final batter of the bottom of the 6th, coming in with an inherited runner in McCutchen. McCutchen would swipe 2B to get himself into scoring position on Helsley, but Helsley put it to the side by blowing away Renfroe with 101mph gas to end the threat.
A little two-out rally in the top of the 8th brought in the Cardinals second run of the night. Arenado roped a double to LF off Cousins, advancing to 3B on a wild pitch with Dickerson at the dish. Dickerson then lined an rbi 1B into RF over the leaping Wong to make it 2-0 Cardinals.
Cabrera flashed the good curve to both lefties and righties tonight, striking out Hiura and Wong on the curve before handing things over to Gio for the four-out save.
Gio would free McCutchen on a filthy slider to get the final out of the 8th before getting the game ending double play in the 9th, off the bat of the Tellez. And what a double-play it was, as the infield was shifted with Tellez batting and Arenado would take the turn at 2B and make it look easy to close out the 2-1 Cardinals winner.
Dakota Hudson (0-0, 6.75) gets the ball tomorrow on Easter Sunday, matching up against the 23-year old LHP, Aaron Ashby (0-1, 1.80). First pitch from Milwaukee is scheduled for 1:10pm c/t. See y’all then.
Cheers, Stew