Good news is the Brewers responded to every punch the St. Louis Cardinals threw at them yesterday. Bad news is Lorenzo Cain pulled up awkwardly after landing on Jose Martinez’s foot. Cain left the game in the eighth inning. This is a nice victory, but it can’t help to feel a bit sour. Cain going down means that the two prized free agents of David Sterns have both suffered injuries before Tax Day. That’s almost hard to do. But it’s good to see Milwaukee could get a win even after another blown save due to Greg Holland being all over the place in appearance number one.

Travis Shaw, the table setter
Even though the top of the order didn’t provide much, Travis Shaw continued his torrid pace in the month of April. Shaw doubled to lead off the second and scored on a Domingo Santana single. Then in the fourth inning, Shaw started the inning with a hit followed by Eric Sogard and Manny Pina drove both in for Milwaukee to take the lead for the majority of the game. Shaw continues to be the bedrock in this Brewers offense. He’s a perfect cleanup hitter, but you could make a case for him to bat higher in the order.

Bullpen holds their water for the most part
After Jhouyls Chacin could not get out of the fifth inning, the bullpen had to be called on for multiple innings. They did a great job minus Matt Albers in the ninth inning. Jeremy Jeffries, Josh Hader and Jacob Barnes were all great. Hader dazzled on national television with four strikeouts and one walk facing five batters over two innings. Hader is a complete stud. Craig Counsell deserves some credit for keeping Matt Albers out there. Not a closer by trade, and he struggled in his first spot then Counsell showed confidence in him to keep him out there. I absolutely love that.

Jhoulys Chacin needs to be better
I know he’s a notorious slow starter, so we could be talking about the Aramis Ramirez of pitching, but this has not be great so far from Chacin. When I thought in the car, he reminded me of Claudio Vargas working out of james, that’s not a good thing at all. Chacin walked three batters, gave up five hits and only struck out one batter. The good news is he did not surrender a home run.

Next up
Brewers send Brent Suter to the mound. Suter is looking for a bounceback outing after a rough one versus Chicago on Thursday night. Cardinals trot out Carlos Martinez who dazzled in his last start against Milwaukee. He’s a Brewers killer, but usually, a team tends to see the ball better when facing a guy so close together.

Charlie.