51şÚÁĎ

The Cardinals’ favorite first baseman/firebrand had one picked out, and so he opened up the team-wide group chat and dropped it in. Pressing send was like lighting a fuse.

“Hopefully everybody watched it,” Contreras said.

He was asked what it said.

“That stays in the group,” he said.

Was it a video?

“Stays in the group,” he said.

Was it a GIF?

“Stays in the group,” he repeated.

Was it colorful? Pointed?

He grimaced as if ready to answer and then shook his head.

Stays in the group.

What couldn’t possibly stay in the group was the feistiness Contreras brought to Saturday’s game and injected into this now spicier series – leading by example and dictating a contentious game with a bombastic, rugged flair that sparked ire from the Milwaukee Brewers and fire from his 51şÚÁĎ Cardinals.

Contreras was hit on purpose with a pitch and put on base ahead of Nolan Gorman’s three-run homer – the decisive swing of the game. Contreras added a homer of his own in the ninth. He turned toward the Brewers dugout and chirped just to let them know in case they missed where the ball landed, somewhere out there not too far from the American Family Field scoreboard that would end the day reading, 8-5, visitors.

It was the Cardinals’ first win in a week.

“In this clubhouse before the game, you couldn’t tell that we lost six in a row,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “I felt that way before the game started. There was a certain level of fire and intensity to taking this one. There is a certain level of fire before pitch 1 that was needed.”

And then there was the burn Contreras kindled and stirred throughout the game.

The Cardinals’ first baseman first drew complaints from the Brewers’ dugout in the third inning when he collided with young infielder and Washington University product Caleb Durbin. Contreras caught Nolan Arenado’s throw to complete the groundout, and then he stepped back from the bag and hip-checked Durbin to the ground. The Brewers verbally lobbed their irritation at Contreras from their dugout on that side of the field. The Cardinals led 1-0 at the time and were about to go up 4-0 on Victor Scott II’s two-run single in the fourth.

In the bottom of that inning, shortly after Jackson Chourio’s triple turned into the Brewers’ first run, Andre Pallante accidentally hit Rhys Hoskins with a pitch.

Contreras confronted Hoskins at first.

Without using Hoskins’ name, Contreras explained after the game how “one of the Brewers” came to first base “and wouldn’t look me in the eye.” He used vulgar language to describe the unnamed Brewer. Video from the fourth inning shows both Hoskins and Contreras talking while standing at first. Contreras later explained that he was asking a Brewer “to say what you said to me from the dugout.” Contreras also said he invited that unnamed Brewer to “push me.”

Hoskins, it’s worth noting, did not push Contreras.

Hoskins told Milwaukee reporters the two were discussing playing first base.

“It’s good to have a guy like Willy able to fire us up and do some crazy stuff sometimes,” Gorman said. “He’s a good person to have in your corner for sure. We love him.”

All of that was prelude to the top of the fifth inning when Contreras was due up second to face former Cubs teammate Jose Quintana.

It didn’t take an Astro banging on a trash can to know what was coming.

Quintana retired Alec Burleson to face Contreras with one out and the bases empty. The first pitch was a changeup away. The second was a fastball bound for Contreras’ shoulder.

The carom took the ball up the third-base line.

Before taking his base, Contreras retrieved the ball and delivered it to Quintana on his way to first. Contreras dropped the ball in the lefty’s glove and gave him a pat.

“I said to him, �We’re fine,’” Contreras explained. “We’re not going to have any beef about it. It’s done.”

The inning was not.

After both teams received a warning from the umpires that will linger into Sunday's finale, Quintana opted to pitch strategically around Arenado to draw the more favorable matchup against left-handed-hitting Gorman. Going into the inning, Gorman said he had no idea whether Quintana would throw a pitch at Contreras, but he was certain Quintana wouldn’t pitch to Arenado. He walked him to put two on for Gorman.

“I figured he was going to do what he did to Nado – pitch around him to get to me,” Gorman said. “I thought, �Take it as a challenge and be aggressive.’”

Gorman jumped an 89-mph sinker and launched it off the scoreboard rising above center field. The ball traveled an estimated 433 feet. Contreras trotted 180 feet to be at home when Arenado and Gorman scored to put the Cardinals ahead, 7-1.

The Brewers chased Pallante in the fifth and trimmed the Cardinals’ lead down to three by the eighth inning.

As hot as Contreras ran all afternoon the game hinged on how cool Phil Maton remained.

The Cardinals’ veteran reliever entered in the seventh inning, and he returned for the eighth. A hit batter and a walk to the bottom of the Brewers’ lineup loaded the bases on Maton and gave the top of the lineup an opportunity as the go-ahead run at the plate. In the heat of that moment – one out, bases loaded, three-run lead – Maton and catcher Pedro Pages also had to get their PitchCom devices to communicate. And, privately, Maton didn’t have a good feel for his curveball, his signature pitch.

All of that was going on, and none of it fazed Maton.

He landed a curveball that started high and away before hooking, sharply, into the zone for a strike on Sal Frelick. Maton went to that same eye-level location, but with a fastball out of the zone. Perhaps expecting the curve, Frelick swung – but the ball never bent down and he struck out. That brought the inning to second-year star Chourio. Maton threw him three curveballs, the last of which Chourio chased to end the inning and strand three teammates.

“This guy’s heartbeat out there is incredible,” Marmol said. “The game is speeding up and he was able to stay calm and make his pitches there and get two punchouts against two guys who put a lot in play. That was the game.”

The Contreras’ brothers, Cardinal Willson and Brewer William, hit solo homers in the ninth to become the first siblings to homer in the same inning for opposing teams since at least 1961, according to Elias research. The older brother, Willson, used his homer as a stage to once again try to make eye contact with Hoskins at first base, and he definitely made sure the Brewers’ dugout noticed him between first and second. Those homers set the score, but didn’t change the difference in it.

If Willson Contreras’ heart dictated the game, Maton’s heartbeat decided it.

About an hour after Ryan Helsley collected the final out with a called-strike, 100-mph fastball, most of the Cardinals had rushed from the clubhouse to the team bus. Gorman spoke with the last remaining reporter about the series of events that led to his homer. He focused on the inning and Arenado’s walk, but the Post-Dispatch asked him to dial it back to the morning and the message that showed up on his phone from Contreras.

Oh yeah, he nodded.

He definitely saw it.

It was definitely Contreras.

But he wasn’t going to give it away, whether it was a text or a video or a GIF.

Stays in the group.

“But did it work?” the reporter asked.

Gorman grinned.

“We won.”