His club adrift offensively, again, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa didn't have to reach far for an example of how any team, even a losing team, is capable of conjuring enough runs to win against the stoutest of pitchers.
He had just watched Milwaukee squeeze three runs from Adam Wainwright.
With no run support until an inning after he left the game, Wainwright lost for the first time at Busch Stadium this season in the Cardinals' 3-2 bow to the Brewers on Wednesday.
In two prior starts covering 18 innings against Milwaukee this season, Wainwright had held the Brewers to one run, and no more than one run in six of his previous seven starts. Yet, rookie Lorenzo Cain's two extra-base hits and a 15-foot dribbler from George Kottaras invented enough offense against the league's ERA leader to make the Cardinals envious.
In Milwaukee's two-game series sweep, all the Cardinals managed against the third-worst pitching staff in the NL was two RBI hits and four runs, total.
"We're capable. We have shown it. We just have to show it more often," La Russa said. "Whatever the guy is doing to us, make an adjustment, make something (happen). Our offense should never be satisfied. ... I don't care if it's Wainwright or (Chris) Carpenter or (Ubaldo) Jimenez or any of the great pitchers in baseball. We should never be satisfied being held to less than three runs.
"Never. Never acceptable."
The Cardinals staged a two-run rally in the ninth inning and got the tying run to third base, undiscovered country for the Cardinals until that inning. Shortstop Brendan Ryan struck out on a 73-mph change-up from wily closer Trevor Hoffman to end the game, clinch his 598th career save and inch him closer to being the first with 600. The win went to lefty Randy Wolf for his 8 1/3 solid innings, and the loss was the Cardinals' fourth consecutive.
So invigorated by their sweep of division-leading Cincinnati a week ago, the Cardinals have lost four of the past five to two teams more than 30 games out of first combined. They didn't generate any momentum from the sweep and, worse, they've lost ground in the standings. The Reds, who led by two games before that showdown, took a 2 1/2-game lead into Wednesday's game at Arizona.
"We've had some tough games, and these are two teams that we expect to come in here and beat, and we just didn't play good ball against them," said Wainwright, who was 11-0 this season at Busch before the loss. "When we hit the ball well, we didn't pitch well. And when we pitched well, we didn't hit the ball well. We're going to have to get better collectively."
At the surface, the series sweep by the Brewers continued a trend for the Cardinals. Houston, Milwaukee and the Chicago Cubs — all lugging losing records — are a combined 13-8 at Busch this season. The Cardinals have won 31 of the 39 other games they've had at home. Deeper, the series underscored the Cardinals' ongoing search for reliably persistent offense.
With Colby Rasmus limited to pinch hitting by a calf injury, and others, such as Jon Jay, cooling off, the Cardinals lean on Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday. They had the only two RBI hits in the series: Pujols homered Tuesday and Holliday drove in Pujols with a double Wednesday. Through five games of this home stand, which continues Friday against San Francisco, the Cardinals have scored in only one inning when neither Pujols or Holliday has reached base.
"We've got to score runs," Holliday said. "It doesn't matter how good our pitching has been. We've got to score."
Like Dave Bush the night before, Wolf (10-9) riddled the Cardinals with strikes and slo-mo breaking balls. Wolf struck out four, walked one, scattered three hits and needed six pitches to get three outs in the sixth inning. Pujols' one-out double in the ninth ended Wolf's shutout bid.
Entering Wednesday, the Brewers' rotation had a 4.83 ERA, the second-worst in the NL, and the pitching staff's 4.92 ERA ranked 14th.But the only hits off Wolf before the ninth were a single by Wainwright and a flare by rookie Allen Craig.
"I think Milwaukee had a game plan that had two pitchers with really, really slow curve balls that kept us off balance," Holliday said. "They used them a lot. ... It's like they had a plan, and we just didn't score enough runs."
Cain was at the epicenter of both Milwaukee rallies against Wainwright (17-7). The rookie center fielder doubled in the fifth, stole third and then scored when Wainwright whiffed on an attempted flip to the plate on Kottaras' meek grounder toward the mound. The run ended Wainwright's scoreless streak at 25 1/3 innings. Two innings later, Cain tripled in the Brewers' second run and scored on a sacrifice fly for a 3-0 lead.
The Brewers' solution for Wainwright was a patchwork of whatever they could create. A steal here. A15-foot single there. A triple.
They improvised a recipe.
Given some ingredients in the ninth, the Cardinals still couldn't cook. Back-to-back doubles to the left-field wall from Pujols and Holliday sparked the inning. The Cardinals then got help with a walk, a hit batter and a fielding error by Prince Fielder that allowed Holliday to score and put the tying run at third with two outs. Hoffman, supplanted this season from his role, came in to face Ryan with the bases loaded. The shortstop fouled back an 85-mph fastball before swinging well ahead of the 72-mph change-up to end the game.
"You expect pitchers to pitch well in this league, and what you have to do offensively is find something that you can do something with and make something happen," La Russa said. "That's our challenge. We haven't done it the last couple days."
