Brewers 2 - 4 Cardinals
Final
  for this game

Holliday, Jay power Cards past Brewers

Sep 7, 2011 - 6:53 AM

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St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) - Jon Jay and Matt Holliday each homered, and Kyle Lohse hurled six shutout innings to help the Cardinals' fading chances with a 4-2 victory over the NL Central-leading Brewers.

Lohse (13-8), pitching on eight days' rest, scattered four hits and three walks while striking out six for second-place St. Louis, which had lost three of four coming in and still trails Milwaukee by a daunting 9 1/2 games.

Yovani Gallardo (15-10) continued his career-long struggles against the Cardinals, yielding three runs on four hits and three walks in a six-inning start to fall to 1-7 in 11 lifetime starts against them.

Wednesday is the last time the Cardinals can directly effect their chances at catching the division front-runners, putting their hopes on Chris Carpenter going up against Zack Greinke in the finale of the three-game series.

Jason Motte, trying to preserve a 4-1 lead in the ninth, yielded two singles prior to facing the heart of the Brewers' lineup. The reliever induced a fly ball from Ryan Braun for the first out before Prince Fielder hit an opposite- field single to bring in Corey Hart.

The rally fell short, however, as Casey McGehee grounded into a 5-4-3 double play, finishing off Motte's third save and snapping Milwaukee's four-game winning streak.

"You don't want to give up a run, but we won the ballgame. That's all that really matters," Motte said.

The Brewers had a prime scoring chance in the first inning, but Lohse retired Yuniesky Betancourt to leave the bases loaded. The Brewers wound up 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position while stranding 12 baserunners.

Gallardo walked two in the bottom half, then surrendered Lance Berkman's two- out base hit past a diving Fielder to bring in Rafael Furcal.

"I made a good pitch to Berkman, it was just out of the reach of Prince," Gallardo said. "It's just the way the game is."

Two longballs in the third gave St. Louis a bigger cushion, as Jay's blast landed in the bullpen beyond the wall in right and Holliday's inside-out swing resulted in a round-tripper near right-field foul pole.

Kameron Loe surrendered three straight one-out singles in the seventh, with Jay's RBI base hit pushing the lead to 4-0.

Jay assisted Milwaukee in the eighth by misplaying a ball hit by Jonathan Lucroy with two away, allowing Taylor Green to score from first.

Game Notes

The Brewers' magic number to clinch their first division title of any kind since winning the AL East in 1982 is still 11...Lohse picked up his first win against Milwaukee since July 25, 2007, when he was a member of the Reds...Hart went 2-for-5 to extend his hitting streak to 18 games...Milwaukee still leads the season series, 9-8.






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