Milwaukee Brewers: Video highlights of late-inning series against St. Louis Cardinals

The Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals played a thrilling series that came down to a few late-inning heroics by both sides.

The Milwaukee Brewers played another thrilling series against a Central Division foe and this time they came out on top against the St. Louis Cardinals, taking two of three games at Busch Stadium.

All three games came down to the final inning to decide the winner.

On Monday, the Brewers won 5-4 in 10 innings when new Cardinals’ closer Greg Holland walked in the go-ahead run in the top of the inning. On Tuesday, Milwaukee’s late-inning woes continued, as they blew a late-lead and ultimately surrendered the game by losing 5-3 to the Cardinals on a walkoff home run. On Wednesday, they made up for their previous game by holding onto their ninth-inning lead, but it wasn’t for the lack of dramatics.

If this trend continues for the Brewers, it’s certain to be an exciting, albeit stressful, season.

Until we get to the rest of the year, however, let’s take a closer look at this series and how it went down. Here are the full highlights and everything you might’ve missed from the Brewers-Cardinals series.

Series Opener:

The Brewers started out the series against St. Louis on the right foot, winning 5-4 in 10 innings thanks to command issues by new Cardinals’ closer Greg Holland.

Before then, however, the Brewers had a couple of nice defensive throws form their outfield. Lorenzo Cain and Ryan Braun each caught Cardinal’s baserunners in the bottom of the first trying to get greedy on the basepaths:

Milwaukee then struck first in the top of the second inning when Domingo Santa singled up the middle, scoring Travis Shaw. When it looked the scoring would end there, Orlando Arcia doubled to right with two outs to bring Santana around and give the Brewers a 2-0 lead.

Unfortunately, the lead didn’t last long as the Cardinals sent three runners across home plate in the bottom of the third to capture a 3-0 lead.

Milwaukee quickly responded in the top of the fourth, as Manny Pina singled to bring in Shaw and Eric Sogard to reclaim the lead 4-3.

That would hold for a while until the bottom of the inning. Matt Albers came in to close and struggled, allowing a sacrifice fly with the bases loaded to tie the game at 4 all. Luckily, that’s all the Cardinals were able to muster.

The next inning, St. Louis debuted their new closer who didn’t have a great night. He walked four of his first five batters (one intentionally) and that brought across the go-ahead run and a Milwaukee victory in the end.

Game Two:

Game two featured another dramatic game between the division rivals and this time, it didn’t work out too well for the Brewers who went down 5-3 in their second consecutive extra-innings game.

Milwaukee has nobody but themselves to blame for this one, as they had plenty of chances to win the game. For the first eight innings, they were only able to muster one run and came on this solo shot by Eric Thames:

https://twitter.com/Brewers/status/983910552681447424

After the Cardinals tied it up in the sixth, Milwaukee responded a few innings later by regaining the lead in what appeared to be another late-inning dramatic victory. Once again, with the Brewers down to their last strike on their last out, they came through in the clutch with this Santana single to left field:

Unfortunately, it didn’t hold nor did their lead they regained in the 10th inning off an Arcia single. The night ended on a Matt Carpenter walk-off three-run homer that sent Brewers fans into an angry frenzy at home after squashing another opportunity.

Series Finale:

Finally, a game that didn’t go into extra-innings, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a heart-stopper for Brewers’ fans.

Once again, Milwaukee got out to an early lead thanks to a Hernan Perez solo shot in the top of the second inning:

A few innings later, Thames belted his fifth home run of the season which is the second most in the National League. Milwaukee later added to their lead in the fifth on a Jonathan Villar groundout to first that scored Arcia and sent Jett Bandy to third. Unfortunately, that’s all the runs Milwaukee produced on the night, but it was enough in the end. Just barely.

The Cardinals got on the board in the sixth inning thanks to a Carpenter groundout to first. The 3-1 score held until the ninth inning when Tommy Pham hit a solo shot. But that wasn’t the end of the dramatics, as the Brewers almost blew another lead. The Cardinals had runners on first and second with one out until Albers was able to come through with the save.

Next: Defense should be Brewers biggest concern

With the Brewers at 7-6, they travel to New York to face a red-hot Mets team for a three-game series beginning on Friday. The Mets are 10-1 and have taken the league by storm early on. Let’s hope Milwaukee can continue their road magic where they are 5-1 on the young season.