The top play of the game instead went to Matt Carpenters double in the second inning.

Wily Peralta was in his usual bad form today, leaving the ball in the middle of the plate and giving up a lot of hard contact. Grichuk opened the frame lining a single to left field. Yadier Molina followed with a double putting runner on second and third. Kolten Wong then hit a sacrifice fly to left field, to score Grichuk and putting the first run on the board. After Aledmys Diaz flied out, for the second out of the inning, opposing pitcher Jaime Garcia singled putting runners on the corner with two outs and Matt Carpenter at the plate. Carpenter is famous for grinding out at-bats and this one was no different, as, on the seventh pitch of the at-bat, he took the Peralta offering to right field on a liner for a double, scoring two runs and giving the Cardinals a 3-0 lead early on.

WORST PLAY (WPA):
When the opposing pitcher gets more hits than your entire team, you know it’s been a pretty bad day. Ya, if you missed this game, Garcia got more hits than he allowed.

On the bright side, Martin Maldonado made this pretty sweet play.

Ok, so Jeremy Hazelbaker probably shouldn’t have been stealing in that situation. Maldonado’s one of the best defensive catchers in the game and he’s got a pretty damn good arm, plus with Halliday at the plate, Peralta pitching and only one out, the Cardinals might have wasted a good opportunity to get ahead early on. Of course, though, none of that really mattered.

Key Moment:

You probably know what’s coming here. After striking out Matt Holliday and walking Brandon Moss, Wily Peralta gave up this homer to Randal Grichuk.

Keon Broxton almost, and probably should’ve had that but that wasn’t the weirdest part of this play.

Ya, Grichuk passed Moss who was tagging up at first base.

It’s one of those plays that makes people say, “I’ve never seen anything like that before and I’ve been watching baseball for X years.”

That’s a pretty weird play indeed. But, again the play itself wasn’t the strangest part of the events that unfolded. The strangest part was that A) the umps missed it and didn’t call Grichuk out, and B) worst of all the Brewers also missed it and didn’t ask for the play to be challenged.

No excuses from #Brewers on missing Grichuk passing runner on HR. Counsell: “All our eyes missed it. Everyone missed it.”

— Tom (@Haudricourt) April 14, 2016

Counsell did note that 1B umpire John Hirschbeck also missed obvious call on Grichuk: “His job is to watch that.”

— Tom (@Haudricourt) April 14, 2016

TREND TO WATCH:

If the plan to start Wily Peralta on opening was done to give him more confidence, well then Counsel is going to need to come up with a new plan, and quickly.

Peralta has made three starts thus far, in the first start he pitched four innings and a third and gave up 6 runs. In his second start he performed slightly better giving up five runs in four innings pitched, and finally today, he went five innings giving up five runs. If quick with your math, that’s good for a 10.13 ERA and a 7.45 FIP.

In other words, Peralta’s off to a rough start. The question now is, how long to the Brewers stick with this performance. They have options in the minors with Zachary Davies and Jorge Lopez. Lopez hasn’t gotten off to a strong start in Triple-A but Davies is sporting an ERA of 2 after his first two starts.

If Peralta keeps up this type of performance, then the Brewers might be looking to give one of these young starters a chance sooner rather than later.

UP NEXT:
The Brewers will be back in action Friday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Jimmy Nelson will get the start for the Brew Crew and will look to keep up his solid performance.

The Brewers will be facing Jeff Locke who’s gotten off to a good start with his 1.50 ERA.

And when Mike Matheny brought in Rosenthal in an effort to send the game into extra innings, it looked like the Brewers would in fact need extra frames to win the game. But Kirk Nieuwenhuis drew a walk, and Santana drove a middle-middle fastball over the center field wall to give the Brewers the eventual 6-4 win.

Bottom Play (WPA):
In terms of raw impact, it’s tough to beat teams trading home runs in the bottom of the eighth and top of the ninth, but the Cardinals half of the sixth inning was ultimately significant as well.

Jeremy Hazelbaker, yet another out-of-nowhere Cardinals product, led off the inning with a double, putting the tying run in scoring position with no one out. The next two plays, though, would define the game (until, of course, the various late-inning heroics).

Matt Holliday was up next, and he was jammed on an inside pitch but was able to muscle it into short right field, where a previous blooper had already fallen earlier in the game. This time, however, Scooter Gennett made an excellent running catch over his shoulder, keeping Hazelbaker at second base with one out. And while the next batter was up, Hazelbaker attempted to steal third base, but Jonathan Lucroy gunned him down (-.103).

Trend to Watch:
Chase Anderson had a second solid start. His ERA will not accurately reflect his performance, as the three unearned runs he allowed in the first still count on the scoreboard and still required him to give up the hits that drove in the runs, but he settled in nicely after a rough first inning. Anderson was a key piece of the Jean Segura trade this offseason, and the Brewers will be hoping he can settle into being a solid option in the middle of the rotation.

Anderson’s 9:2 strikeout-to-walk ratio in eleven innings is a positive development for the Brewers, especially with Matt Garza’s injury and Wily Peralta’s general terribleness. Jimmy Nelson has also looked good thus far in 2016, so having two or three dependable options in the rotation is a big step for a club that is looking to develop its younger players.

Key Moment:
Brandon Moss’s game-tying home run in the bottom of the eighth came off Michael Blazek, and it was a key example of the cost of Will Smith’s injury. Despite the fact that Smith and Jeffress were to be co-closers and therefore have uncertain roles, Smith would almost definitely have pitched the eighth. With lefties Matt Carpenter and Jeremy Hazelbaker due up and the team’s big bench bats being lefties, Smith would have been the obvious choice to pitch the eighth. Instead, though, Blazek was the best choice.

Top Play (WPA):
The only candidates for top play came in the bottom of the first, as the Cardinals jumped out to a 3-0 lead which they would not relinquish. The top play according to WPA was Randal Grichuk’s double with one out (.095). Matt Holliday scored on the play, scoring the game’s second run.

The inning was set up by Jeremy Hazelbaker’s triple with one out. Ryan Braun made an ill-fated attempt at a sliding catch and the ball bounced past him to the wall. It was a hit regardless, but the slide gave Hazelbaker the opportunity for at least an extra base. The ball tailed away from Braun, but he should have played it more conservatively. Matt Holliday followed that up with a double to right field, before he scored on Grichuk’s double. The Cards would score their 3^rd run of the inning on a Yadier Molina single.

The second inning featured two more Cardinals runs to make the game 5-0. Alemdys Diaz hit a double which bounced off third base, and then scored on a triple by Matt Carpenter, which was misplayed by Domingo Santana. The fifth run was scored on a Hazelbaker sacrifice fly.

Jungmann was pulled in the 3^rd inning after allowing two doubles and a walk. An optimist would look at his start and think he may have had a better day if Braun and Santana hadn’t flubbed balls hit their way. A pessimist would say that the misplays hurt, but Jungmann got knocked around and was giving up consistent solid contact. There are only so many explanations one can give when a pitcher gives up 7 extra base hits and takes 60 pitches to record 6 outs.

Worst Play (WPA):
Jonathan Lucroy grounded into a double play in the top of first with one out and runners on 1^st and second. WPA recorded the play as -.085. After that play, the Brewers never threatened. As the Cardinals scored nine runs in the first three innings, the Brewers’ only base runner in the 2^nd and 3^rd was a two out walk from Domingo Santana. No play was worth more than .002 after the 3^rd as Wacha made fairly easy work of the Brewers, whose only run was scored on a Chris Carter home run.

Trend to Watch:
It’s been a week, and so it’s hard to get too worked up about anything that’s happened so far. However, Scooter! Coming into the season, it’s fair to say that Gennett’s future with the Brewers was by no means assured. Though the Brewers seem to want Gennett to succeed, his profile isn’t much to write home about, as Seth Victor has discussed here and here. His defense isn’t great, he can’t hit lefties, and any power he may have had has been MIA since 2014.

But Gennett has started 6 of the Brewers’ 7 games so far, and has a hit in each start. He also has four walks. As a reference point, his fourth walk last year occurred on June 24. If he’s worked on his pitch recognition, then there’s a chance that perhaps he’s grown as a hitter and can at least be a serviceable second baseman and lineup regular. He’s never had an OBP approaching his current batting average of .409, but even chopping 50 points off that would put him close to his rookie year OBP, when he showed promise.

This slightly disingenuous chart shows his exit velocity has also increased at least through the first week of the season. However, there’s some reason for skepticism. While he’s hit three home runs this season, those are also his only extra base hits. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he’ll be exposed as his home run rate lowers to a realistic level. So we may be a seeing a new Scooter, or these paragraphs will be laughable by the middle of June. Yay early regular season baseball!

Up Next:
The Brewers have today off to lick their wounds and get ready for the rest of the series. Chase Anderson will look to follow up his first solid start of the season against Mike Leake on Wednesday evening, followed by the series finale on Thursday afternoon.