By MATT PIKE
José Fermín and Nathan Church hit RBI singles as the St. Louis Cardinals scored all their runs in the second inning of a 3-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. The victory kept the Cardinals from going winless during a six-game road trip.
In the second inning, Brewers starter José Quintana allowed six of the first seven Cardinals batters to reach. Thomas Saggese hit a leadoff single, advanced to third on Nolan Gorman’s double and scored on a Pedro Pagés sacrifice fly before Jordan Walker walked. Fermin singled home Gorman, and Church singled home Walker.
Milwaukee got solo homers from Caleb Durbin in the fourth and Danny Jansen in the fifth. Jansen’s homer was his 12th of the season but first since July 20. It also was the first time he’d gone deep since the Brewers acquired him from Tampa Bay at the trade deadline.
Those were the only runs Miles Mikolas allowed in his five innings as he gave up five hits and struck out five, improving to 8-10 on the season with the win. Riley O’Brien allowed a two-out walk to Andruw Monasterio in the ninth before striking out Sal Frelick to earn his fourth save in seven opportunities. It was a measure of redemption for O’Brien, who allowed three runs without retiring a batter in a 9-8, 10-inning loss to Milwaukee on Saturday.
At the plate, while the Cardinals had just six hits total, it was Fermin going 2-for-3 with an RBI. Gorman was 1-for-4 with a double, as three other Redbird hitters had one hit each.
Up next, St. Louis returns home to begin a series with Cincinnati. Matthew Liberatore (7-12, 4.35 ERA) is set to start for the Cardinals against Zack Littell (9-8, 3.78) for the Reds. First pitch is at 6:45pm, coverage will begin around 6:35 on KY 102 (102.5 FM).
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