51ºÚÁÏ

The Brewers scored seven runs in their final three at-bats to flip a game Saturday night that the Cardinals once lead by five runs. Three of the five runs the Brewers scored in the eighth and ninth innings to tie the game reached base by walk or hit batter. The game ended with a 9-8 Brewers victory on Andruw Monasterio’s walk-off single in the 10th inning, but it was lost by the creeping erosion of the Cardinals’ play.

A runner not advanced.

A rally abandoned.

A play not made.

Another play not made.

Compounding mistakes proved costly.

“To completely simplify it, we don’t deserve to win that game or to even be in that game,� manager Oli Marmol said. “If you sneak that out, great. That’s not the style of play that needs to take place to win a ballgame. ... You have a lot of opportunities that are just baseball plays that aren’t good enough to win.

“That game was lost in a lot of different ways.�

Driven by designated hitter Ivan Herrera, the Cardinals thundered to an early lead. Herrera had three hits off Brewers phenom Jacob Misiorowski — including his home run for the first run of the game and his double that became the Cardinals’ sixth run for a 6-1 edge they took into the bottom of the fifth inning. Beneath the garish lead, the Cardinals started to melt.

Starter Sonny Gray, dominant through five, was frustrated as he walked the first batter of the sixth and did not record an out. There was a dropped popup in foul territory. Nolan Gorman had a chance to manufacture a vital insurance run in the ninth and struck out. A bunt was not executed. A grounder was smothered instead of gloved to assure an out.

All of these things added up to a lead misplaced in a flurry of walks and hit batters and then a fifth consecutive loss.

The Cardinals slipped to 0-5 on the road trip, and four of the losses were by two or fewer runs. In each one, the Cardinals can point to a frayed fundamental, something usually tightened by experience or in March that has loosened with the learning curve of youth in September.

“If you look at the last road trip, per se — go to Seattle and then come here and you’re playing two playoff teams on the road with very, very good atmosphere, and we were right there,� Gray said. “We’ve been in all of the games. So it’s frustrating and unfortunate that we haven’t been able to win those games. But I also think it says a lot. It’s not for lack of attitude, and it’s not for lack of effort. I can promise you that.

“We’re coming in with an edge and expecting to win,� the right-hander said. “(We) just haven’t. When we learn to win these games is when we’ll, as a team, take the next step. But you have to be in these moments so you can learn from them.�

One way to do that: watch the Brewers in those same moments.

Milwaukee clinched a playoff berth before the first pitch Saturday due to the New York Mets’ loss. It’s the seventh time in the past eight years the Brewers have reached the playoffs — not that they did much celebrating. They put T-shirts up for sale. They had a toast. And then they shifted to focusing on finishing with the best record in baseball and winning a National League Central title along the way. They long ago usurped the Cardinals’ reign as the scrappy, finely tuned division leader.

Multiple Cardinals, including the manager and starter Andre Pallante, noted late Friday night how the Brewers pounce on an opponent’s wobbles and spin them into wins.

“You just can’t give them free passes,� Marmol said. “You can’t make mistakes. You can’t make errors. That’s where their crooked numbers come from. That’s how they’ve done it all year. You have to be able to control that part of it.�

The Cardinals could say it and recognize it.

That didn’t stop them from still doing it.

Home runs by Herrera and Brendan Donovan off Misiorowski pushed the Cardinals to a 3-0 lead through three innings. Gray was deep into dominating — but also getting deeper into his pitch count. The right-hander struck out the side in order to start the game. He had three perfect innings in his five, and the only two runs he allowed scored on sacrifice flies. One came after he left the game — but it was that walk, that walk to start the sixth that scored the second one.

After commenting on the team’s overall play and lessons to learn, Gray personalized it by pointing to that sixth inning. The top of that inning lingered, and Gray was already at 90 pitches. He wanted to maintain his rhythm, his crispness and pitch deeper into the game. Five pitches into the sixth, he walked to leadoff batter, and his start was over.

“I’m processing and learning through that situation and how to be better in that,� the veteran said. “That honestly is the opposite of finishing strong.�

Within in his start was another example of an area where he’s felt improvement. In the third inning, Gray faced the bottom of the Brewers lineup, and the first three batters singled. Gray was able to minimize any damage by striking out Jackson Chourio to regain a grip on the inning. He got out of the bases-loaded mess allowing just one run because of the K.

It took some fortune for the Cardinals to push their lead 6-1 in the top of the sixth. Pedro Pages reached base on a bloop that dropped between Brewers infielders after a miscommunication. Pages got to third on an error, then scored on a wild pitch. It was the Cardinals’ turn to capitalize on mistakes. But they were starting to catch up too.

In that same sixth inning, a failed bunt stalled the rally.

In the ninth, the first two runners reached base.

The rally fizzled.

“We had some non-plays,� Marmol said. “That today is not good enough.�

The spillover of those misplays and missed moments started in the eighth. JoJo Romero walked consecutive batters after a leadoff single to load the bases with no outs. The lefty was able to calm the uprising by striking out Christian Yelich. But the Brewers had chipped two runs off the Cardinals’ lead.

The ninth began with Riley O’Brien hitting back-to-back batters.

One trip through the Brewers lineup and six batters reached base.

The Cardinals escorted five of them to first with a walk or hit batter.

“That’s how you lose to a team like this,� Pallante said the night before when talking about an inning with three walks and errant throw by him on a grounder. “You give them something like that.�

Both of the batters O’Brien hit scored in the ninth inning, and two infield singles were enough to bring home the tying run and force extra innings.

“You can look at JoJo and O’Brien and say that’s the game,� Marmol said. “That game should not have been in that spot. I’m more disappointed in some of the other parts of that game.�

One was yet to come.

After two innings spent watching the Brewers turn walks or hit batters into runs, the Cardinals got their chance. The 10th inning began with a hit batter. Donovan drew a walk. Including the runner who starts extra innings on base, the Cardinals had three base runners given to them, the bases loaded and no one out as the visiting team.

Primo chance. Bring on the fundamentals. Cue the crooked number.

The Cardinals scored once.

On a double-play ground out.

The Brewers are winning on moments like that.

The Cardinals are learning.

“It’s probably making the right decision and making the right baseball play over and over and over and over and over because it’s not for lack of give a (crap) around here,� Gray said. “We haven’t given in. I promise you that. It may be making the right decision. It can seem like even the smallest, most-monotonous decision on the field. But training that way, making every decision along the way, make the right baseball decision — that is just something you have to train and train and train so that becomes natural instinct. ...

“You have to go through stretches like this and recognize what they do better than we do.�