Brewers vs. Cardinals: Zack Greinke Undone By Errors

The St. Louis Cardinals are one game away from the World Series after topping the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night by a 7-1 margin. The Brewers offense struggled, but the defense, working behind Zack Greinke, was just as poor. And the breakdowns proved costly, putting the Brewers’ backs against the wall as the series heads back to Miller Park.

Greinke pitched well, even if a peek at the scoreline shows the Brewers gave up five runs while he was on the mound. After the game, manager Ron Roenicke praised Greinke’s performance, saying he threw the ball well.

Yeah, Zack threw the ball well. I know he didn’t get the strikeouts but he still only should’ve given up one run if we make the plays for him. So I like the way he threw it, his fastball was good today. His breaking ball, he couldn’t get it down in the dirt when he wanted to get one down he couldn’t bounce it and that hurt him, but I thought he threw the ball well.

But there were those errors. Milwaukee committed four errors on the night and Greinke gave up three unearned runs. Roenicke had the following to say about the defense.

No, we weren’t. We still had some opportunities to score offensively even though we gave up the runs for Zack. (If) We put the ball in play a couple of times, score two runs when we have a runner on third and less than two outs and it’s a 5-3 game. So I still would’ve felt good there. We had opportunities with people on base, we swung the bat ok today. But defensively, yeah, we gave up some runs.

Still, the Cardinals offense put up seven runs in the win, and pasted the Brewers’ pitching en route to the blowout. The errors were bad, but St. Louis helped itself out quite a bit while scoring in spurts to take a 3-2 advantage in the NLCS. And all the Cardinals have to do now is win one of two in Milwaukee to book their ticket to the World Series.

For more on this game, check out the rest of the Baseball Nation live-blog and Rob Neyer’s recap.