While both teams on the field with reservations already secure in the postseason used their veterans strategically and limited their pitchers appropriately, a rookie put on a show.
Dylan Carlson homered twice, once from each side of the plate, and had two superb plays at two different positions in the outfield to start the Cardinals on a new winning streak. Carlson’s two-run homer in the sixth inning and his catch against the right-field wall in the ninth lifted the Cardinals to a 4-3 victory Thursday afternoon against Milwaukee and Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals ended their season series with the division champs by winning six of the final seven games. If they meet again it will be in the NLCS, for the pennant.
The Cardinals have won 20 of their past 22 games.
Carlson started the game in center to get Harrison Bader a break and finished it right to allow for a double-switch. The rookie made leaping, pivotal catches at both positions. In the sixth inning, Carlson raced back on a liner that appeared set to sail over his head. He jumped and robbed with his back to the infield and robbed Keston Hiura of extra bases. In the ninth, Hiura get tagged a pitch that was bound for the wall in right. Carlson’s glove met it before it made contact and Hiura again turned back to the dugout, his bid to put an inning in motion ending each time in Carlson’s Rawlings glove.
At the plate, Carlson changed the game and burnished a season that will receive some votes for the National League’s rookie of the year.
The switch-hitter Carlson's solo homer in the third inning of lefty Brett Anderson zoomed into the teeth of the Cardinals’ concerns about how Busch Stadium suppresses offense. They wonder if the airway between home plate and center field, specifically the gaps framing center field, has become harder to get the ball to carry. Carlson showed what it takes to get through it. From the right side, he drilled a pitch that left his bat at 106.7 mph and traveled an estimated 408 feet.
Three innings later, from the left side, Carlson stung a pitch that left his bat at 107.4 mph and traveled into the right-field seats for an estimated distance of 393 feet.
The second homer, off righthanded pitcher Jandel Gustave, followed Tommy Edman’s leadoff single in the sixth inning and reversed the game. Milwaukee had led by a run before Carlson’s swing and trailed by a run after it.
For the second time in his career and second time this month, Carlson homered twice in a game, once from each side of the plate.
The Brewers teased a threw in the eighth inning before T. J. McFarland pulled a T. J. McFarland by entering with a runner on base and needing one pitch to get out of it. McFarland got the grounder that the Cardinals spun into a double play to end the inning.
In the ninth, after Carlson’s key catch, the Brewers got the tying run to second base. They put pinch-hitter Kolten Wong at the plate with two outs. The former Cardinal struck out as one of the newest Cardinals, Luis Garcia, closed out the game for his second save of the season.
A seesaw game that both postseason-bound teams saw as their chance to selectively use and rest players in preparation for next week’s playoffs provided enough swings to make it compelling and a start from J. A. Happ to add importance.
The Cardinals took an early lead on Jose Rondon’s sacrifice fly when Paul DeJong’s bolt to the gap fell shy of a home run and became a double in the second inning. Milwaukee answered with a run in the third. Carlson’s first home run – from the right side of the plate – regained the lead for the Cardinals in the bottom of the fourth. Milwaukee struck for two runs against Happ in the top of the fourth inning.
The lefty, moved up in the rotation to get Jon Lester an extra day of rest, and made what could be his final start for the Cardinals depending on postseason assignments.
Happ (10-8) struck out seven, including the bottom two batters in the Brewers’ lineup each time he faced them. Acquired from Minnesota at the trade deadline, Happ was part of the stabilization of August that led to the surge of September. The Cardinals’ season had crumbled through the middle months because of the pitching staff’s inability to cover innings and control counts, and that mix of short starts and ample walks wore out a bullpen and failed to take advantage of an elite defense.
Happ did.
Happ won three of his first five starts for the Cardinals, carrying games routinely beyond the fifth inning. He had one brief, disastrous start in Cincinnati at the start of September when he allowed seven runs in one inning – and since has been cranking out steady starts, if not, by definition, quality starts. He did that Thursday. The lefty allowed three runs on nine hits through 6 1/3 innings. He bopped around the hits by being willing to get the ball in play for six groundouts, and in the fourth inning, as things started to go sideways, he struck out back-to-back batters to slip free.
