Brewers lose to Cardinals, Baker singles in 10th inning

MILWAUKEE – Luken Baker scored the winning run in the 10th inning with two outs to give the St. Louis Cardinals a 3-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday night.

The Cardinals have won two of three games against the NL Central-leading Brewers, with bonus-point victories on each of the last two nights. St. Louis won 7-4 in 12 innings Tuesday.

Milwaukee failed to score a single point in 15 of the 15 games they were in a position to score.

St. Louis had a runner on third base with two outs in the 10th when Joel Payamps (3-7) intentionally walked Nolan Arenado. Milner, who was promoted from Triple-A Nashville on Tuesday, came out of the bullpen to make his first major league appearance since Aug. 8.

Baker came on as a pinch-hitter and sent a ball down the middle that scored Masyn Winn.

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Ryan Fernandez struck out two batters, intentionally walked Jackson Chourio to put a potential game-winning run on base and then threw out Rhys Hoskins for his second save in four opportunities. Andrew Kittredge (3-4) earned the win with 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief.

The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a pair of Colin Rea walks with the bases loaded, and the score stayed that way until the Brewers scored singles in the seventh and eighth innings.

Milwaukee’s Garrett Mitchell hit the opening triple in the seventh inning and scored when Joey Ortiz grounded a ball to third base. That was the only run allowed by St. Louis’ Sonny Gray, who struck out seven and gave up four hits and one walk in seven innings.

JoJo Romero replaced Gray in the eighth inning, and Eric Haase sent the left-hander’s first pitch wide of the wall in left center for his fourth home run of the season. Haase’s 438-foot equalizer marked the first time he had hit a deep throw since a two-homer game in Minnesota on July 21.

The Brewers came close to taking the lead late in the game.

Brice Turang followed Haase’s homerun with a double to left. Turang advanced to third base when Chourio was thrown out, and then Romero was removed in favor of Kittredge.

With the advantage at third base, Kittredge struck out reliever William Contreras, intentionally walked Willy Adames and struck out Mitchell.

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The Cardinals took an early lead, taking advantage of Rea’s uncharacteristic control issues.

Rea hasn’t allowed a walk in four consecutive starts and allowed just one walk in the entire month of August, but he did allow walks with the bases loaded to Iván Herrera and Lars Nootbaar in the first inning.

The Cardinals did no more damage to Rea, who struck out four while allowing four hits to go with two walks and two runs in four innings. Milwaukee’s DL Hall struck out six in four innings of scoreless relief.