Holliday, Cardinals shut down Brewers
MILWAUKEE -- Matt Holliday had three hits including his ninth home run of the season and Carlos Martinez struck out eight over eight shutout innings as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-0, Monday afternoon at Miller Park.
Holliday also scored twice and drove in three runs, part of a Cardinals' 12-hit attack that took advantage of a number of defensive miscues by the Brewers, who were charged with two wild pitches, a passed ball and an error.
Those issues made things even tougher for starter Junior Guerra, who didn't have his best stuff but managed to work into the seventh despite allowing four runs -- three earned -- on eight hits with six strikeouts.
The loss was Guerra's first of the year. He'd gone 3-0 with a 3.30 ERA in five starts since bring brought up from Triple-A Colorado Springs on May 3.
He stranded a runner at third in the first, retired the side in the second and got Martinez on a grounder to open the third but then issued three straight singles to make it a 1-0 game.
An error on Chris Carter and a passed ball on Jonathan Lucroy kept the inning going and Matt Adams cashed in with a double before Guerra got out of it with a double play.
Holliday singled in an insurance run in the fifth and after a wild pitch from Jhan Marinez let Matt Carpenter, who finished with four hits including a pair of doubles, score from second. Marinez struck out Aledmys Diaz for the second out but left an 0-1 fastball up to Holliday, who crushed it 466 feet to left center, making it 6-0.
Martinez (5-5) stranded two in the sixth with a pair of strikeouts and got out of the seventh by getting Ramon Flores to bounce into his second double play of the day.
NOTES: A stiff neck kept LF Ryan Braun out of the Brewers' starting lineup for the third consecutive game. Braun has missed 15 of Milwaukee's last 19 games because of a sore right wrist, lower back tightness and now, the neck issue. ... Cardinals OF Stephen Piscotty was scratched from the starting lineup due to a bout of food poisoning. ... Brewers LHP Will Smith threw a simulated game Monday for Double-A Biloxi, his last step in the process of rehabbing a sprained left LCL suffered in spring training. He will get a few days of rest and could be reactivated from the DL Thursday when the Brewers open a four-game series in Philadelphia. ... St. Louis is 10-28 in its last 38 games at Miller Park and 75-47 there all-time, including a 7-2 mark in Milwaukee last season.