Monday’s Game Report: Brewers 10, Cardinals 7

Monday’s Game Report: Brewers 10, Cardinals 7

The Cardinals might want to re-think their strategy in how they are pitching Christian Yelich.

Yelich continued his assault on St. Louis’ pitching on Monday night, topping even his already blazing start to the season against the Cardinals with a three-homer night, driving in seven runs, as the Brewers won the opener of a three-game series in Milwaukee.

Here are just a few of the numbers that illustrate how dominant Yelich has been so far this season against the Cardinals:

Yelich now has seven homers in those five games. He is the first player to hit a home run in the first five games of a season against the Cardinals since Hank Aaron in 1972.

Yelich became the first player in history to hit a home run in six consecutive games in which he had at least one at-bat against the Cardinals, dating back to last season.

The seven homers in five games already has matched the most home runs hit against the Cardinals in an entire season since 2001. The last player to hit more than seven was the Astros’ Richard Hidalgo, who hit nine in 2000. Yelich and the Brewers, just for the record, have 14 games left against the Cardinals this season.

Yelich became the sixth player since 1955 to hit at least three homers and drive in at least seven runs against the Cardinals. The others to do that were Del Ennis (1955), Johnny Bench (1970), Larry Walker (1999), Scooter Gennett (2017) and Yasiel Puig (2018).

Yelich now has at least one RBI in each of his last seven games against the Cardinals in which he had an at-bat (he walked five times in his final game against St. Louis last season).

He hit a three-run homer in the second, another three-run homer in the sixth and a solo homer in the eighth.

Here is how the game broke down:

At the plate: Paul Goldschmidt has been almost as hot against the Brewers as Yelich has been against the Cardinals. He homered again in the first inning and now has hit five of his seven homers this season in the five games against the Brewers. In 28 career games at Miller Park, Goldschmidt has hit 13 homers … Paul DeJong followed Goldschmidt’s homer with one of his own in the first. They later got another homer from Marcell Ozuna, hit off Josh Hader in the ninth … Goldschmidt also singled in a run in a three-run sixth, when the Cardinals temporarily tied the game 6-6.

On the mound: Dakota Hudson failed to make it through the fourth inning, giving up six runs in the second, capped by the Yelich homer … Yelich’s three-run homer in the sixth came off Mike Mayers and his blast in the eight was off John Brebbia, the first run Brebbia has allowed this season.

Key stat: in his five games against the Cardinals, Yelich has a .565 average with the seven homers and 15 RBIs. He has walked seven times and struck out once. In his other 12 games this season, Yelich has a .286 average with one homer and seven RBIs.

Worth noting: The Cardinals made a roster move before the game, bringing Drew Robinson back from Memphis and returning reliever Giovanny Gallegos to the Triple A club. He was needed as Tyler O’Neill had to come out of the game in the third inning with what was described as right arm soreness. Harrison Bader already is day to day with a hamstring issue and has missed the last two games … Reliever Mike Mayers also came out of the game early with an unknown injury, and home plate umpire Ron Kulpa, a St. Louis native, was forced out of the game in the sixth when he was hit in the head by a wild pitch.

Looking ahead: Jack Flaherty will get the start on Tuesday night in the second game of the series.