MILWAUKEE — Unable to generate much offensively against Milwaukee other than a single here or a walk there, the Cardinals’ increasingly resourceful lineup had to conjure another way to find enough runs and extend one of the longest winning streaks in club history.
They stole them.
Tommy Edman stole two bases and Lars Nootbaar, a late-game entry, stole another, and both of the runs the Cardinals scored in a 2-1 victory Tuesday night came as a result of the steals. Edman’s became a run on a sacrifice fly, and Nootbaar’s doubled the Cardinals’ lead and provided the winning run when Edman’s single brought him home from second. The Cardinals didn’t have an extra-base hit until the ninth inning. Didn’t need one. They created their own.
The Cardinals won their 10th consecutive game — the longest winning streak since 2001, when they had two separate winning stretches at least as long.
This is the 13th time in 130 years they’ve had a streak as long as 10.
This surge is as timely as any before it.
With the tailwind of all that winning, the Cardinals opened a four-game lead on Cincinnati and San Diego for the National League’s second (and final) wild-card playoff slot with 12 games to play.
Rookie Jake Woodford combined the longest start of his young career with his first scoreless start and after the righthander’s five innings the bullpen took over. Four relievers held the division-leading Brewers at arm’s length with Giovanny Gallegos adding the finishing touch. He allowed a leadoff single in the ninth, overcame a walk, and pitched with the bases loaded before finally, fiercely securing his 11th save of the season with a strikeout to strand three Brewers.
Once the game reached the seventh inning, past the reach of Milwaukee starter Brandon Woodruff and Woodford, the teams branched into their bullpens to decide what was, at that point, a 1-0 game.
Alex Reyes walked the first batter he faced — Milwaukee leadoff hitter Kolten Wong — on four pitches. He then struck out the next three batters on 14 pitches for a scoreless inning. Reyes yielded the mound to lefty Genesis Cabrera for the seventh, and Cabrera continued what Reyes started in relief. The Brewers went to a counterpunch of righthanded pinch-hitters and Cabrera struck out two of the three batters he faced in a flawless inning.
Enter Luis Garcia, the first of the Cardinals relievers to have a two-run lead at his back and also the last.
The day after earning his first save of the season, Garcia got assigned the eighth in his third appearance in as many days and his fourth in five days. Christian Yelich greeted Garcia with a stung liner to left that Tyler O’Neill crouched to catch before it buzzed the grass. A walk followed, and then Wong drilled a double off the right-center wall to put a rally in motion and the tying run at second.
A sacrifice fly cleaved the Cardinals’ lead in half before Garcia ended the inning by striking out Eduardo Escobar. In the middle of Escobar’s at-bat, with Garcia behind in the count, Yadier Molina was visited by the manager and trainer behind home plate to flex out his left knee. Escobar whiffed soon after.
Without the benefit of a hit, the Cardinals stole the 1-0 lead those pitchers would cradle for seven shutout innings before the offense doubled it. For the fifth time in six games, the Cardinals scored in the first inning, and an engine behind their winning streak was jumping to early leads against opponents.
They’ve just not done it like they did Tuesday. Edman fell behind in the count before working back for the leadoff walk. He stole second base to get in scoring position for Paul Goldschmidt. Edman’s steal in the eighth gave him 27 the season, the most by a Cardinal since Edgar Renteria stole 34 in 2003.
When Goldschmidt bounced into a groundout, Edman trotted to third.
That gave him a clear avenue home when O’Neill skied a ball to center field for the sacrifice fly. Three batters into the game, the Cardinals had a 1-0 lead.
They got only three batters on base from there to the seventh inning.
Woodruff, one of the Brewers’ All-Star rotation, struck out 10 Cardinals, including all three he faced in his final inning of work. The righthander retired the final 11 Cardinals he faced, and he struck out seven of them. By striking out O’Neill to end the sixth inning, Woodruff not only completed his evening but collected his fifth 10-strikeout game of the season and the 11th of his career.
Through the first six innings Tuesday night, the starting pitchers were in complete control. They traded zeroes, they swapped strikeouts, and they even broke up their no-hitters.
Woodford singled to right in the third inning for the first hit of Woodruff, and in the bottom of that inning Woodruff pulled a line drive single to left field for the first hit against the Cardinals’ rookie righthander. That was as good of wood as any other hitters got off the two righthanders.
With 12 games remaining in the regular season, the Cardinals intend to maintain a five-day schedule for veteran pitchers Adam Wainwright and Jon Lester and adjust the rotation as necessary around them. Any shift or clinching in the wild-card race will alter that plan, but until that point Woodford (3-3) is in the flex position of the rotation — moving his games around the priority assignments for others. That he’s in that position, in the rotation speaks to how well he’s pitched since his return from Class AAA Memphis.
The righthander got 16 outs from 16 batters he faced in relief shortly after his return and used that appearance to vault into the rotation. In his two starts in that role, Woodford combined to allow three runs on seven hits in eight innings. He had four innings in each start. What he did in those starts was what so many other young starters who had their cameos in the rotation didn’t — he didn’t let innings unspool or walk away from him. He used the defense behind him.
In the first inning, left field O’Neill sprinted to track down a fly ball in the distant corner. In the fourth inning, Dylan Carlson went to the foul along foul territory in right field and jumped to get an out from Avisail Garcia.
