ST. LOUIS _ An early flurry of offense wound up carrying the Milwaukee Brewers past the St. Louis Cardinals in a rain-soaked game at Busch Stadium on Wednesday night.
The Brewers scored six runs in the first two innings, got a key RBI single from Hernan Perez in the seventh and held on for a 7-6 victory in a game that featured two separate delays totaling 1 hour 50 minutes.
The two teams have been bedeviled by inclement weather in both series so far in St. Louis. A postponement on May 3 led to a doubleheader on Tuesday, which the Brewers and Cardinals split, and Wednesday's delay meant play would extend into late-night hours.
The story coming in for the Brewers was the return of Matt Garza, who'd been reinstated from the 10-day disabled list earlier in the day. He missed his last start after coming out on the wrong end of a collision with 6-foot-3, 250-pound Jesus Aguilar.
He couldn't have asked for a better scenario to return to, as Milwaukee's offense jumped on St. Louis starter Mike Leake for six runs in the first two innings.
Eric Thames' two-run homer two batters into the game made it 2-0 in the first. Eric Sogard's two-run double in the second made it 4-0, then Thames doubled in Sogard and Travis Shaw singled in Thames to make it 6-0.
Seeing Thames break out early was undoubtedly a nice sight for the Brewers. He'd recorded just one multi-RBI game since May 9 and one multi-extra-base hit game since May 7.
But the Cardinals came roaring back against Garza in the second.
Beginning with Yadier Molina's leadoff single, they racked up four consecutive hits. Jose Martinez's triple got St. Louis on the board at 6-2, then RBI doubles by Kolten Wong and Matt Carpenter narrowed the gap to 6-4 before Garza finally stopped the bleeding.
Both Leake and Garza settled in from there, with Garza facing the minimum from the third through his final inning in the fifth. He was lifted after 87 pitches having allowed five hits, four runs (earned) and two walks to go along with four strikeouts.
Leake departed after six innings with the score still 6-4, then the Brewers added an insurance run against Kevin Siegrist in the seventh when Domingo Santana doubled and Perez singled to right with two outs to drive him in.
Jared Hughes, pitching in his third straight game, fired a 1-2-3 sixth with two strikeouts behind Garza.
Every Brewers starter reached base through the seventh and all but Keon Broxton collected a hit.
The first delay lasted 50 minutes. Carlos Torres pitched a scoreless seventh after play resumed, but the bullpen struggles resurfaced in the eighth.
Jacob Barnes took over with the Brewers still holding their 7-4 lead. With the rain coming down again he issued a one-out walk to Jedd Gyorko, then with two outs allowed a two-run homer just inside the foul pole in left to Aledmys Diaz.
Play was again called at that point, followed by a delay of 1 hour.
Corey Knebel replaced Barnes and got the last out of the eighth, then worked around a two-out single in the ninth to record his 10th save.
