Burleson Goes Deep Twice as STL Rolls MIL 5-1

Alec Burleson went 2-for-4 with a home run, a double, and 3 RBI to power St. Louis past Milwaukee 5-1 on Wednesday. The Cardinals did their damage early and often, and Milwaukee never had an answer.

St. Louis wasted no time. In the first inning, Jordan Walker doubled to right to score Masyn Winn, and then Burleson followed with another double to right to score Walker — a two-run burst that pushed the home win probability from 60% to 70% on that Burleson knock alone. That's the kind of first-inning statement that puts a team on its heels before the starting pitcher has even broken a sweat. Milwaukee's Garrett Stallings was actually sharp in his two innings of work — 0 hits, 0 runs, 3 strikeouts — but the Cardinals had already done the damage before he ever got loose.

The story of the night was Burleson, and it wasn't particularly close. After the first-inning double, he came back in the sixth and launched a 443-foot home run to right that scored Walker again, pushing the lead to 5-0. In between, José Fermín added a 404-foot solo shot to left center in the fourth to make it 3-0. That's two Cardinals going deep, Walker scoring twice, and Milwaukee's Kyle Harrison absorbing 4 hits and 3 earned runs across 4 innings of relief work. McGreevy, meanwhile, went 6.1 innings for St. Louis, allowing just 1 earned run on 5 hits with 6 strikeouts — a workmanlike performance that looks even better given the run support he received.

Milwaukee's lone run came in the seventh when Cooper Pratt hit a sacrifice fly to left to score Garrett Mitchell, who had reached base and scored after going 2-for-4 on the night. Pratt also finished 2-for-3 with that RBI — two of Milwaukee's more productive individual lines in an otherwise quiet offensive night. The Brewers managed hits but couldn't string anything together against a Cardinals staff that appears to have its act together right now. JoJo Romero closed things out with a clean inning of relief — 0 hits, 0 runs, 2 strikeouts. This was a complete, wire-to-wire Cardinals win, and Burleson's 3-RBI performance looks like the kind of night that defines a team's week heading into the All-Star break.