• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers
• Game Tracker

Cardinals hope to put a dent in Brewers' NL Central lead

Sep 5, 2011 - 2:34 PM (Sports Network) - The Cardinals' sweep of the Brewers last week kept the door open just a crack in the race for the National League Central. St. Louis will need a repeat performance of that series, and even more help down the road, beginning with tonight's opener of a three-game series with first-place Milwaukee.

The Cardinals plated 18 runs in taking all three games of a home set with the Brewers a week ago to trim their deficit in the standings to 7 1/2 games. That sweep seemed to set the stage for this meeting in St. Louis, the final one between the teams this season, but while the Cardinals lost two of three to the Reds over the weekend, the Brewers swept a three-game set in Houston to push their advantage for first place back to 9 1/2 games.

That gives Milwaukee a magic number of 13 to clinch the division and manager Ron Roenicke will look for his club to step it up with so much on the line.

"The guys know they have to play better than the last time we faced them," said Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke about the upcoming series. "We know we can't play an average game and hope for the best, we have to play well."

The Brewers certainly played well on Sunday to finish off the sweep of the Astros, getting seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball from Shaun Marcum in a 4-0 win.

Ryan Braun added a solo homer and finished with three RBI, and Corey Hart ran his hitting streak to 16 straight games for the Brewers, who hope to avoid a fifth straight loss to the Cardinals tonight.

St. Louis, meanwhile, dropped a key 3-2 decision to Cincinnati when the Reds' Juan Francisco drove in the game-winner in the 10th inning on Sunday.

Despite a solo homer from Jon Jay and an RBI triple by Daniel Descalso, manager Tony La Russa wasn't pleased with how his team did at the plate.

"I don't think our offense is feeling too good," La Russa said. "It's an aggravating or upsetting offensive day for our team. I didn't feel too good about the at-bats we took and didn't like our productivity."

Jake Westbrook and Randy Wolf squared off in the middle portion of last week's meeting on Wednesday, with Westbrook getting the best of his Milwaukee counterpart both on the hill and at the plate. The two rematch again tonight.

The Cardinals right-hander notched his second straight winning decision, giving up three runs -- two earned -- on eight hits over five innings of the 8-3 victory. He also single-handily got back the runs he gave up, launching a grand slam off Wolf in the fourth inning for his first career homer.

"It's pretty special to go back and say you've hit a grand slam," said Westbrook, who moved to 11-7 with a 4.72 earned run average on the season. "I just wanted to keep it fair and it turned out to be a big hit for us."

The 33-year-old had lost his first two starts against Milwaukee this season and has a 4.50 ERA in the 2011 series. His homer on Wednesday was the third allowed by Wolf in the game as he also yielded solo homers to Rafael Furcal and Albert Pujols in the first inning.

"It was not a good way to start the game with two home runs and both of them with two strikes," said the 35-year-old lefty. "Things happen like this. We're a group that knows you're going to occasionally have bad games. A lot of us have short memories and we'll just have to put this one behind us."

Wolf had a five-decision winning streak snapped -- a run that included a pair of victories over the Cardinals -- after being charged with six runs over five innings. He fell to 11-9 with a 3.58 ERA on the year, which includes a 6.75 ERA in four starts against St. Louis.

In addition to its deficit in the NL Central, the Cardinals are also 8 1/2 games off the pace for the league's wild card spot.