MILWAUKEE — While trying to repeat a magic dash of team history the Cardinals helped make some for a veteran who has been an instrumental part of their September revival.
The Cardinals struck early, added on late, and called on an improvised order of relievers to assert and then secure Jon Lester’s 200th career win.
The lefty pitched a superb six innings, and with some help from Nolan Arenado’s 33rd home run an 100th and 101st RBIs piloted the Cardinals to their ninth consecutive victory with a 5-2 win against Milwaukee on Monday. The winning streak is the longest since 2004 for the Cardinals and it continues their assertive finish and tightening grip on the National League’s second wild card. The win also delays Milwaukee’s clinching of the National League Central title. The first-place Brewers, who long ago pulled out to a large lead in the standings, need only two wins against the Cardinals in this four-game series at American Family Field to secure the division crown.
Lester is the 119th pitcher in MLB history to reach 200 wins.
He is the only active lefty with that many wins, and he joins Justin Verlander (226) and Zack Greinke (219) as the only active pitchers to reach that milestone. During the handshake line at the end of the game, Yadier Molina gripped Lester in a hug and then offered him the ball from the final out, which he had cradled in his mitt. Molina provided two RBIs in the game, and that included the tie-breaking run in the sixth inning.
Having utilized and stretched the bullpen to overwhelm the Padres during the weekend, the Cardinals had to break from their usual late-inning relay race for some higher-leverage looks at rising relievers like Kodi Whitley and Luis Garcia. The righthander Garcia, one of the midseason additions, pitched a perfect ninth for his first save of the year.
With a two-run lead to hold, Whitley retired the side in order in the seventh. He walked the leadoff batter in the eighth to get the game into T. J. McFarland territory. The lefty, who the Cardinals call on to quash late-inning tempests with runners on base, got the double play grounder to erase the wall and speed through the inning. Shifted toward shortstop because of the lefty at the plate, Arenado got the grounder and started the double play on his own by tapping second.
The Cardinals widened their lead as the roof at American Family Field rolled to a close because of an approaching storm.
Twice it was Molina providing the hit that produced a run.
In the sixth, the Cardinals got an RBI single to score Tyler O’Neill, giving the left field his second run of the game. He’s scored at least once in each of the Cardinals’ nine consecutive wins. In the seventh, pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter led off with a double, taking second against Christian Yelich’s play of the ball. That kept him out of a double play when Tommy Edman bounced a ball to Kolten Wong. Instead, Carpenter reached third and that allowed him to score on Paul Goldschmidt towering fly ball to center field.
In the eighth, the Cardinals got the leadoff man on base for the third consecutive inning and for the third consecutive inning that runner scored via small ball.
Arenado walked.
Dylan Carlson bunted him to second.
Molina brought him home with a single.
Textbook.
The Cardinals were four batters into the game when they already had something that had been missing from the team for almost a decade.
Peralta struck out the first two batters he faced before O’Neill, the reigning National League player of the week, extended his hitting streak to nine games with a two-out single up the middle. On the first pitch Peralta threw him, Arenado skied a deep fly ball to left field that carried out for a two-run lead and his 100th and his 101st RBIs of the season.
Arenado is the Cardinals’ first batter with at least 100 RBI since Matt Holliday in 2012, and the nine seasons the Cardinals went without a 100-RBI hitter is the longest span for the team in at least 100 years.
The lead provided by Arenado’s homer was quickly matched by Milwaukee.
Two of the three hits Lester (7-6) allowed were solo homers and both came in the second inning as the Brewers leveled the game, 2-2. Avisail Garcia led off the second inning with his 28th homer of the season, and two batters later Luis Urias lined his 21st homer of the season 382 feet to left-center field. Despite the bruising in that single inning, Lester kept chucking strikes, kept getting quick outs, and kept minimizing the trouble he got in by not walking batters.
The veteran lefty did not throw a pitch with a runner in scoring position.
The only hit other than the homers he allowed was a single in the fifth, and Lester promptly struck out Peralta to end that inning. Lester’s only two strikeouts of the game were from Peralta. The other 16 outs he got from the Brewers’ eight position players all came on balls in play, 11 on fly balls.
While Lester invited the Brewers to make contact, Peralta got in a groove where he mostly avoided it all together.
The Cardinals dinged the All-Star righthander for the two runs on one swing in the first inning and then couldn’t piece together rallies for several innings. Peralta allowed seven hits, but he also spiked his six innings with nine strikeouts. Peralta struck out the first two batters he faced and then the final two batters he faced to keep the Cardinals to the single run in the sixth inning – the single run that did break a 2-2 tie.
