Leahy, Herrera lead Cardinals to series-opening win over rival Brewers

ST. LOUIS -- An interesting pattern has emerged in Kyle Leahy’s last two starts.

Leahy has breezed through the first five innings of each start without allowing a run. It’s the sixth inning where things changed.

In his most impressive start of the season, Leahy ended up allowing just one run in 5 1/3 innings in the Cardinals’ 6-3 win over the Brewers on Monday. Leahy allowed six hits, struck out five and walked two. It tied his longest outing of the season, and he threw 56 of his 94 pitches for strikes.

“The line was a little better, but obviously, still the sixth inning is what's a little bit of a hurdle I need to get over,” Leahy said. “I think I made some good adjustments of how I'm planning, game-planning ahead of time and between innings in the dugout. But yeah, it still comes down to execution, and then the physical piece of everything and just getting over that hurdle.”

Trouble started after Leahy allowed a leadoff walk to Jake Bauers in the sixth. He followed that up by striking out Andrew Vaughn looking, but Sal Frelick ended his night with a single. Bauers eventually scored on a Luis Rengifo single off George Soriano.

In his previous start, Leahy held Pittsburgh scoreless through five, only to allow three runs while recording just one out in the sixth.

“Just continue to give him opportunities to try to plow through it,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “The score will dictate how much we allow, but if you look at his outing today, I thought the fastball played well and got some punch out to that. The sweeper was a good pitch for him, and third time through a little bit more, just contact, harder contact.”

Adjusting the third time through the opponents’ order is the logical next progression for Leahy, who is attempting to establish himself as a starter after coming out of the bullpen in his previous three seasons.

Albeit a small sample size, eight of the 10 batters Leahy has faced in the sixth inning have reached, and five of them have scored.

The splits against the Brewers through the first five innings told another story. Leahy was able to strand one-out doubles in the first and fourth innings, and aside from Jackson Chourio’s three hits, the rest of Milwaukee’s lineup hit .130 off of him during that span.

“My goal is to be a guy that can pitch into the sixth, seventh inning, so obviously, I want it bad,” Leahy said. “I want to be able to get through this. And then once you get through the top of the lineup the third time through, then you have a better chance against the bottom. It'll come, hopefully.”

JJ Wetherholt’s two-out single scored Masyn Winn to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead in the second inning. The hit snapped a 1-for-14 on the homestand for the rookie, who also added another RBI single in the eighth.

“We had a runner in scoring position every inning of this game except maybe the sixth, if I'm thinking about that correctly,” Marmol said. That's a lot of pressure. You do that to any pitching staff, and I mean, at some point they'll break and I think that's what we saw today.”

Iván Herrera ended Brewers starter Chad Patrick’s night early with a bases-clearing double that scored three runs in the fourth to make it 4-0 as the Cardinals won for the seventh time in their last eight games.

The double extended Herrera’s on-base streak to a career-high 21 games. Herrera said he was especially locked in after the Brewers intentionally walked Wetherholt ahead of him to load the bases.

“People say it's personal. It's not personal, but, like, I want to have success in that situation, because they just walked somebody just to pitch to me,” Herrera said. “Maybe I'm the liability on the team, you know. So that was, for me, was kind of like the thought I had. You want this. I got you.”