Luken Baker drove in the go-ahead run with a pinch single in the 10th inning to lift the visiting St. Louis Cardinals to a 3-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday night.
Milwaukee reliever Joel Payamps (3-7), who entered to start the 10th, retired the first two hitters before walking Nolan Arenado intentionally. Hoby Milner took over on the mound, and Baker lined an RBI single up the middle to score automatic runner Masyn Winn from second.
Ryan Fernandez struck out three in the bottom of the 10th for his second save. Andrew Kittredge (3-4) got the win after throwing 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief.
Milwaukee (81-59) leads the NL Central by nine games over the Cubs, who no-hit the Pittsburgh Pirates in a 12-0 win on Wednesday. The Cardinals (71-69), who defeated Milwaukee 7-4 in 12 innings Tuesday, are in third, 10 games back.
St. Louis is 5 1/2 games out of a playoff position after taking two out of three in the series.
After being held to one run through seven innings by Cardinals starter Sonny Gray, the Brewers tied the game 2-2 on the first pitch of the eighth when Eric Haase went deep to left-center off reliever JoJo Romero.
Brice Turang then doubled and moved to third on a groundout. Kittredge entered and fanned pinch hitter Wiliam Contreras. Willy Adames was intentionally walked and stole second, but Garrett Mitchell struck out to end the inning.
The Brewers, who had the leadoff man aboard in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, finally broke through against Gray in the seventh. Mitchell opened with a triple down the right field line and came home on Joey Ortiz’s groundout.
The Cardinals capitalized on command issues by Brewers starter Colin Rea for two runs in the first.
Paul Goldschmidt singled with two outs, extending his hitting streak to 11 games. Nolan Arenado followed with a ground-rule double and Brendan Donovan was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Rea, who had not walked a batter in 23 2/3 innings over four starts, then issued consecutive run-scoring walks to Ivan Herrera and Lars Nootbaar.
Gray gave up a run on four hits and a walk in seven innings. He struck out seven.
Rea lasted four innings and yielded two runs on four hits and two walks with four strikeouts.
