Rough day for Nick Mears, umpires sinks Brewers in series finale with Cardinals

A non-overturned call followed by a bad outing by Mears leads to loss in rubber match

Box Score

After a disappointing extra-inning loss to the Cardinals on Wednesday night, the Brewers were looking to bounce back for the series win in St. Louis in Thursday afternoon’s series finale.

Instead, the Brewers struggled to muster any offense and a combination of the bullpen and the umpires led to a series loss.

Things got off to a promising start in the first as Jackson Chourio doubled and William Contreras singled to put runners at the corners with one out. Garrett Mitchell proceeded to strike out and Willy Adames grounded out as Miles Mikolas avoided any damage.

Freddy Peralta looked mediocre most of the day, allowing a single but nothing else over the first two frames. In the third, he allowed a double to Victor Scott II, walked Alec Burleson, and hit Willson Contreras to load the bases for Brendan Donovan. After falling behind 2-0 to Donovan, Peralta got a gift as Donovan flew out to center to escape the jam.

The Brewers once again had a threat in the fourth, as Wm. Contreras walked and Rhys Hoskins reached on an error by usually-sure-handed Nolan Arenado, but Sal Frelick grounded out as Mikolas again got out of it.

Mitchell then helped Peralta out with the highlight of the day defensively, robbing Lars Nootbaar of a go-ahead solo homer in the bottom of the fourth.

Peralta got into more trouble in the fifth, allowing another single to Scott, who then stole second. After a walk to Burleson with two outs, the Cardinals had runners at first and second with two outs. Wn. Contreras then hit a soft grounder that he initially was ruled safe on, but a replay overturned the call at first and the inning was over.

As mentioned earlier, Peralta didn’t have his best stuff today, but he managed to keep the Cardinals off the board. He went five scoreless innings, allowing three hits, two walks, and a hit batter with two strikeouts.

After a clean sixth from Jared Koenig, Nick Mears entered in the seventh and things quickly went sour. Tommy Pham popped out but Scott followed with his third hit of the day on a single to right. This is where things got interesting.

Wm. Contreras made a back-pick throw to first on Scott and seemingly threw Scott out, even though the first-base umpire ruled him safe. On review, it looked like the tag from Hoskins pushed Scott’s hand off the base, but apparently the replay crew didn’t agree and the call stood.

After consecutive singles from Masyn Winn and Burleson, the bases were loaded with one out for Wn. Contreras. Contreras fell into an 0-2 hole and on a check swing that was near the corner of the zone, the pitch was called a ball and confirmed on appeal by the first-base umpire. Contreras would go on to walk, driving in the first run of the afternoon.

Mears got a soft fly ball off the bat of Donovan one batter later, and Mitchell did a good job in center of deking the runners out, allowing him to throw Contreras out at second base for the second out, though another run came across.

Bryse Wilson entered and gave up a single to Arenado and a walk to Nootbaar to load the bases again. He induced an inning-ending popup from Luken Baker to escape with the score at 3-0, though nine batters came to the plate for St. Louis. That closed the book on Mears, who recorded just two outs and ultimately gave up all three runs in the frame.

The only other thing of note was a ball that got lost in the sun by Mitchell in the bottom of the eighth, which allowed the inning to continue. The Cardinals put runners at the corners but weren’t able to score as Wn. Contreras flew out to end it.

Mitchell got a one-out single in the ninth — one of just three hits on the day for the Crew and the first since the first inning — but it was too little, too late as Adames and Hoskins both induced outs to end the game and the series.

Chourio, Wm. Contreras, and Mitchell had the only hits for the Brewers on the afternoon. The pitching staff didn’t look great, but the good news is they were able to rest their top arms after some grueling games on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Milwaukee still holds a 10-game lead in the division with 35 games left. They’ll start a three-game series with the Athletics on Friday night in the last series the Brewers will play in Oakland for the foreseeable future with the team moving to Sacramento this offseason. Aaron Civale starts for the Brewers and JP Sears starts for the A’s with first pitch scheduled for 8:40 p.m.