MILWAUKEE — Back at the ballpark where he had a season end due to a significant injury, Dustin May authored his finest start yet as a Cardinal and pitched seven innings of statement baseball against the division rival Brewers.

And then an inning, the game — and a chance to salvage the series — slipped through the Cardinals’ fingers.

The whiplash from May’s high to sudden loss was swift.

May took a no-hitter into the eighth inning Wednesday and had overwhelmed the Brewers to that point. On the same mound for the first time since he experienced a shoulder injury there in May 2021, May was brilliant with a season-best nine strikeouts and no baserunner past first through the game’s first six innings.

The only two hits he allowed came in the eighth, and the inning unraveled from there for the Cardinals.

The Brewers took their first and only lead of the game on a fielding error by Gold Glove-winning shortstop Masyn Winn that could have been the final out of the inning. Milwaukee held on through the ninth for a 2-1 victory and a series sweep at American Family Field.

The Cardinals got the tying run to third base in the ninth before closer Trevor Megill struck out pinch-hitter Yohel Pozo to do something the Cardinals did not do for themselves much in the series: send them home.

The Cardinals scored two runs total in three days.

They stranded four runners at third base Wednesday.

The Brewers cracked May’s bid for the 10th no-hitter in Cardinals history in the eighth inning, and they shattered the shutout he had going a few batters later.

Garrett Mitchell led off the eighth with a double that cleared the reach of left fielder Bryan Torres. Torres’ triple in the fourth inning had produced the game’s only run to that point and the 1-0 lead that May spent so long protecting. Mitchell advanced to third against May when Luis Rengifo dropped a bunt.

That was the last batter May faced.

What followed was an unraveling that ultimately led to the inning’s final out going through Masyn Winn’s grasp.

Against lefty reliever JoJo Romero, Christian Yelich bounced an RBI single up the middle to score Mitchell and level the score, 1-1. Jackson Chourio followed with a similar ground ball — but this one was within the reach of Winn. He bobbled the ball, and it caromed toward shallow center field. Sal Frelick scored on the error for the 2-1 lead.

Instead of the Cardinals getting the final out of the eighth inning and holding a tie game, the Brewers scored the go-ahead run to give them a chance at closing out the sweep.

May’s magnificent 7

May’s mix of dominance and efficiency carried through the seventh.

He retired the Brewers in order on seven pitches to complete seven no-hit innings on 81 pitches and minimize pitch count as a factor for going deeper into the game. He also riddled the Brewers with multiple different pitches in that inning. No. 3 hitter Brice Turang chopped an 81.3-mph curveball for a first-pitch groundout to begin the inning. Cleanup hitter William Contreras saw two pitches, and on the second — a 96.3-mph fastball — he popped up to right field.

The longest at-bat of the inning belonged to Jake Bauers.

His solo homer on Tuesday started the Brewers' scoring, but as May continued to blitz through the Brewers, Bauers had difficulty just making contact. The Cardinals right-hander set up Bauers with a sweeping slider at 86.1 mph and then caught him looking at a 97.1 mph fastball. May finished six of his strikeouts with that sweeper, but as the Brewers began to expect and still do nothing with it, he used the fastball to freeze them.

The only batters to reach base in the first six innings did so on a batter hit by a back-foot breaking ball, and then in the third, a catcher’s interference put a Brewer on base.

Neither reached second against May.

The right-hander's final line had him allowing two runs on two hits through seven innings. Both runs scored after he left the game.

Cardinals eke out a run

With a game rained out and an offense pretty shut out, the Cardinals entered Wednesday’s series finale searching for their first RBI base hit since Saturday.

An underlying trend of troubles with runners in scoring position had become a major factor in the offensive slow down. Held to two runs and an RBI groundout Monday, the Cardinals managed four hits against the Brewers’ starter Tuesday but no runs. The zeroes continued to stack up through three innings Wednesday despite chances.

The Cardinals opened the second inning with back-to-back singles.

The Brewers slowed them with a double play.

Two innings — the second and the third — ended with a Cardinal at third base and stranded there. In the second, Jordan Walker got that far after his leadoff single. In the third, Victor Scott II walked and got to third on Ivan Herrera’s single. That Scott did not attempt to steal second after the walk meant he did not score on the play. When Alec Burleson struck out, Scott remained stuck at third to end the inning.

The trend changed in the fourth when Torres put himself at third.

Walker again opened the inning with a leadoff single.

The Cardinals’ newest outfielder, who joined the club Saturday for his major league debut after 11 years in the minors and independent leagues, pulled a ball into the right-field corner. That easily scored Walker from first for the game’s initial run. Torres dashed to third for his first big league triple. His two-out hit gave May a lead to work with.

But it was not enough to entirely stopped the Cardinals habit.

Torres was stranded at third.

That was the third consecutive inning the Cardinals left a runner there.

May announces his presence with authority

With some raw nerves and questions still simmering about how the Cardinals would respond to Tuesday’s lewd gesture by reliever Abner Uribe toward their dugout, May made it clear quickly how he was going to attack the Brewers.

Yes, it was with pitches.

But it wasn’t at them — it was by them.

May struck out the first three batters he faced. Leadoff hitter Yelich worked him through a nine-pitch at-bat to start the game, and May finished it with a 86.7-mph sweeper that Yelich whiffed on. All three of the first-inning strikeouts came on a sweeper.

May spiked one that Chourio chased and catcher Pedro Pages blocked for the strikeout. And then he bent one past Turang at 86.3 mph for the final strikeout of the inning.

May struck out four of the first six batters he faced, and by the end of the fourth inning, he had already tied a season high with seven.

He struck out five of the Brewers’ nine starters at least once.

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