Shaw's HR in 10th propels Brewers over Cards

ST. LOUIS -- Inside the visitor's clubhouse late Monday, Zach Davies looked at fellow Brewers pitcher Carlos Torres and called the shot.
Davies called it right. Travis Shaw's two-strike, two-out, three-run home run in the 10th inning sent the Brewers to a 7-5 win at Busch Stadium after the Cardinals came back from four runs down to force extras in the opener of a four-game series.
Shaw went 2-for-5 in his return to Milwaukee's lineup after sitting out Sunday's game with a bruised right hand from a hit by pitch the night before. After Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong's throwing error put the Brewers in business against Seunghwan Oh in the 10th, Shaw cashed in by hitting a 1-2 slider a Statcast-projected 451 feet to right-center field for the Brewers' second-longest home run this season. Shaw also hit the longest, a 458-footer against the Cardinals' Carlos Martínez on April 20 at Miller Park.
"That last at-bat, I looked at Torres and said, 'This is a good guy for Shaw at the plate,'" said Davies, who knew Oh throws a heavy dose of sliders. "I just think Shaw can get to those kind of pitches."

The home run was Shaw's sixth, and with Jonathan Villar's two-run homer earlier in the game, the Brewers now have a Major League-leading 47 long balls this season.

"That was pure reaction right there," Shaw said. "Down and in slider, for me it was just trying to put the ball in play. I reacted and backspun it."
It was the third homer off Oh in 13 2/3 innings this season after he served up five in 79 2/3 innings all of last season.
The Brewers built a 4-0 lead by the fifth inning, but the Cardinals powered their way back into the game. Aledmys Díaz and Matt Carpenter hit back-to-back solo home runs off Davies in the fifth, and Jedd Gyorko opened a tying, two-run rally in the eighth with a shot off Jacob Barnes.

Gyorko homered again in the bottom of the 10th against Brewers closer Neftalí Feliz, but Feliz hung on to earn his seventh save.

"We're down and we get back into it and it looks like we have some momentum going, and we just can't put it away," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said.
• Brewers step up defensively
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
All square: Barnes did not allow an earned run in any of his first 12 regular-season appearances out of the Brewers bullpen, but suddenly he's struggling. After allowing three earned runs on three hits and a walk on Friday against the Braves, Barnes' outing Monday began with Gyorko driving a low fastball to center field for a home run that cut the Cardinals' deficit to 4-3. Barnes then walked Stephen Piscotty and surrendered a Yadier Molina broken-bat single that put the tying runner on third base with nobody out. Two batters later, Wong grounded a single off Barnes' glove up the middle to tie the game.
• Gyorko taking game to different level
"You do have to ride out those kind of games," Barnes said. "I'm sure at some point this year, I'm going to have [an outing in which] two out of three outs are line drives right at people. It works that way. It's part of the relief job. You just have to ride it out and get back to what you've been doing."

Long gone: While pitching the first five innings, Davies extended the Brewers' half of the third inning with a two-out single before Villar hit his longest home run in the Statcast™ era (which covers the past three seasons). The two-run shot left the bat at 107 mph and traveled a Statcast-projected 450 feet to center field, besting Villar's 436-foot homer against the Cubs at Miller Park last September.
QUOTABLE
"I've answered probably 50 questions here in the last three days about how good he's been playing. This kid's been playing really good baseball. He's been running the bases very well. He's been playing good defense. He's been a spark for us offensively. This is just one of those days. He's going to let that go, and he's going to come back and be the same kind of player we've been complimenting for days."
-- Matheny, on Wong, who slipped around third base for a key out in the sixth inning before committing a costly error in the 10th
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
The Brewers still have work to do in the series to break their St. Louis slump. They have not taken a series from the Cardinals since winning two of three games in April 2014. Since then, Milwaukee is 0-15-2 in series against St. Louis.

WHAT'S NEXT
Brewers:Wily Peralta will go for victory No. 5 when he takes the mound against the Cardinals on Tuesday, but he will have to snap his St. Louis funk to get it. Peralta is 0-8 with a 5.46 ERA in his last 10 starts against the Cardinals.
Cardinals: Carlos Martinez (0-3, 4.71) will get the ball for Tuesday night's game looking to earn his first win of the season. He has received just 1.57 runs of run support per game this season, which is the third-lowest in the National League. First pitch is at 7:15 p.m. CT.
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