MILWAUKEE — As if the first 100-win team in Milwaukee Brewers history needed any help getting to 101 wins, the Cardinals were there for them in the eighth inning Friday.

For the second time in as many days, a throwing error on the infield led directly to a Cardinals loss, but unlike in the series finale at Pittsburgh, the ragged play did not stop with one error. Nor did it start with the error.

A feisty Cardinals team powered back into the game with home runs from Jordan Walker and Alec Burleson to tie the game, only to see it unravel in the eighth. Reliever Justin Bruihl hit the Brewers’ No. 9 batter and then later overthrew first to put Milwaukee’s go-ahead rally in motion. Rookie reliever Cade Winquest added a throwing error later in the inning that allowed the NL Central champions to pull away for an 8-4 victory at American Family Field in front of a tickets-sold crowd of 42,793.

The two throwing errors by two different Cardinals relievers in the same inning meant two of the four runs scored by Milwaukee were unearned.

Immediately after the hit batter and the error by Bruihl, Brewers infielder Brice Turang skipped a two-run single to left that broke a 4-4 tie the Cardinals had gone the distance to create just one inning earlier.

Rookie Robert Gasser, the latest young pitcher off the Milwaukee Brewers’ assembly line of exceptional arms, held the Cardinals to one hit through his six innings.

The one hit was a solo homer, but all around it, Gasser was dominant.

The lefty struck out a career-high nine batters. He continued to gather momentum for Milwaukee’s playoff run with his sixth consecutive start allowing two or fewer runs, his fourth consecutive allowing one or fewer. The Padres’ second-round pick in 2021, Gasser came to the Brewers in the Josh Hader trade and just seems to fit right in with the parade of Milwaukee pitchers who have reigned in the NL Central for nearly a decade.

Gasser got 11 swings and misses, and he flummoxed the Cardinals with a fastball that hummed along at 92.8 mph and then a sweeper that dove away at around 79.2 mph, on average. Gasser finished three of his nine strikeouts with the fastball, and then he came back and finished three of them with his sweeper. In his first time through the Cardinals’ right-leaning lineup, Gasser struck out six. He had retired the first 10 he faced and 14 of the first 15.

The only blemish was Ivan Herrera’s homer.

Opposite Gasser, Michael McGreevy dealt with constant traffic in his final start of the season. The Brewers peppered him with nine hits. Several times, McGreevy got a groundball that he needed for a double play, but the pace of the grounder was off or the turn wasn’t attempted to help him limit the traffic.

In 4 2/3 innings, McGreevy allowed four runs on 11 baserunners and when he left the game to the bullpen, the bases were loaded.

But the game was not yet lost.

Cards power back

Through six innings the Cardinals’ only hit had also produced their only run.

Herrera ripped a full-count pitch from Gasser into the Brewers bullpen to momentarily tie the game, 1-1, in the fourth inning. Herrera’s 19th homer of the season was the Cardinals only hit against the Brewers’ starter, and by the bottom of the same inning the Cardinals trailed again, and that deficit would grow to three runs by the end of the fifth.

Once Gasser left the game, the Cardinals flexed.

The first Cardinal to face the Brewers’ first reliever homered. The second singled, and then the matchup mayhem began and Burleson pegged the foul pole with the game-tying homer.

Gasser turned his lead over to right-hander Bryse Wilson, and the lead off the seventh inning the Cardinals had Jordan Walker. His September swoon had only intensified as he lugged a .173 average and .267 slugging percentage in his previous 21 games. Walker struck out twice against Gasser before getting a look at a different pitcher.

He took advantage.

Walker got ahead in the count 3-0 and then drilled a fastball over the plate to center field for his 29th homer of the season. Walker’s homer traveled an estimated 411 feet, and it started a conflagration against Wilson. Leo Bernal followed with a single up the middle, and that gave the Cardinals as chance to deploy Burleson.

Their first baseman was in the lineup against the lefty Gasser, but there he was to greet the right-hander Wilson.

Burleson turned on a pitch and sent it deep and down the line. He stayed in the batter’s box to see if it stayed fair. It clanged off the foul pole as if ringing in the tie game. Burleson’s 25th homer was a two-run shot that leveled the game, 4-4.

But Burly’s bolt also broke a tie

But that bolt that created a tie also broke a tie.

Earlier in the day, Baltimore slugger Pete Alonso vaulted into a tie with Burleson for the major-league lead in RBIs, at 113. Burleson was likely to get into the game at some point against the Brewers, but his at-bats would be limited by not starting the game. Milwaukee has two right-handed starters set for the final two games of the series, so Burleson is likely to be in there as he pursues being the first Cardinal hitter to lead the majors in RBIs since 1971.

He’ll be the first lefty-hitting Cardinal to do so since the 1940s.

Burleson’s two-run home moved him ahead of Alonso with 115 RBIs.

Help kept McGreevy’s ERA below 4.00

Throughout the past week as the Cardinals closed their season on the road, manager Oli Marmol has described how he wanted to get rookie relievers Cade Winquest and Brycen Mautz into increasingly difficult situations. They don’t get much trickier than the one he found Friday for lefty Mautz.

And this came with the twist of saving a teammate’s ERA.

In the fifth inning, the Brewers got three hits off of starter McGreevy, and he walked the final batter he faced to load the bases with two outs. Marmol turned to Mautz to face the inevitable pinch-hitter, Jackson Chourio, with the bases loaded. Mautz was pitching on back-to-back days having thrown a scoreless seventh Thursday. And on base were the runs that could cause McGreevy’s ERA to climb from 3.95 to finish at greater than 4.00.

It’s a baseball card aesthetic but the difference between seeing a 3 and a 4 starting the ERA can be the same as seeing the difference between a 2 and 3 starting a batting average or a 7 or an 8 starting an OPS.

And it was in Mautz’s hands.

He walked the right-handed-batting Chourio to force in a run.

If one more of the inherited runners scored, McGreevy’s ERA would tip over.

Mautz fell behind left-handed batter David Hamilton, 3-1, before challenging him with a series of fastballs. Hamilton fouled off a sinker to get the count full, and then Mautz zipped a 94.2-mph fastball past him for the inning-ending strikeout that marooned three Brewers on base. Mautz kept two of the three inherited runners from scoring, and that cemented McGreevy’s ERA at 3.95 for his first full season as a major-league starter.

Mautz breezed through the sixth ahead of the Cardinals’ comeback.

Have a night Contreras

Brewers catcher William Contreras, the younger brother of former Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras, put his stamp on the game early with a series of emphatic, demonstrative, and even emotional moments. Benched recently for not hustling, William Contreras bolted from the box in his first at-bat and even attempted a headfirst slide into first base to beat the throw.

He did not, but the attempt – even as risky as it was for a catcher going fingers first into first base on the eve of the playoffs – got a smile from manager Pat Murphy.

At the end of the second inning, Thomas Saggese was called out on a third strike, but he challenged the call. Contreras was so confident in the pitch that he just kept walking off the field and was at the dugout when the ABS system confirmed the strike out. Contreras was more successful when challenging calls. Through the first 5 ½ innings of the game he has challenged five balls called by home-plate umpire Stu Scheurwater and had all of them overturned to strikes.

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