MILWAUKEE _ Their rotation thinned by a serious injury to a leading player and their hold on a winning record starting to loosen, the Cardinals turned to the pitcher they've expected to lead them all season for what could have been a statement game against a rival.
It couldn't have gone worse.
Then it did.
In one of the most lackluster and outright sloppy games of the season, Carlos Martinez lost his grip _ literally _ early in the game and the hard-charging Brewers humbled the visiting Cardinals in an 11-3 victory at Miller Park. Marcell Ozuna leaped and reached over the wall for a ball that hit off the bottom of it. Martinez allowed a run on a pitch that he cast 30 feet and then turned his back on. The Cardinals committed four errors, meandered through innings, and looked, at times, disinterested. Six of the Brewers' runs were unearned, and two others came on a catch that wasn't made.
The finest play of the game for the Cardinals came when center fielder Tommy Pham jumped to get a glove on a ball that would have gone for a grand slam _ and instead only became a three-run triple for Eric Thames.
This teetering road trip, which has three games remaining in Milwaukee, has some of the trappings of a winless one last summer that led to the first midseason coaching staff shakeup in Mike Matheny's tenure as manager.
That's one way to provide a jolt when there isn't one on the field.
Leadoff hitter Matt Carpenter drilled the first pitch of the game for a solo home run, his 17th leadoff homer of his career. There wasn't another pitch in the game that went as well for the Cardinals. Brewers starter Brent Suter retired the next 12 batters he faced before hitting Yadier Molina. That proved to be one of the few baserunners Suter (8-4) would allow in his seven innings. The Cardinals got two hits off the lefty, and both came along with RBIs. By the time the second one came, the Cardinals trailed 7-1 and Martinez (3-4) was on his way out of the game.
Since returning from the disabled list, Martinez has pitched tentative and without much control. He walked 13 batters in his previous 82/3 innings before Thursday, and in his three starts since coming back from a lat strain, he had allowed 34 batters in 122/3 innings.
He acknowledged after his first game back that he pitched hesitantly out of fear for being injured again. That explained why he didn't unleash his usual velocity.
Matheny said he saw a pitcher caught in between.
There have been times when Martinez purposefully dials back his velocity to create more movement and more efficiency _ firing heat only when necessary. That's what the Cardinals saw in Martinez's short rehab work in the minors, and what has carried into his starts since coming back from injury. Matheny suggested oscillating between the lower-speed, more-movement approach and the grease left Martinez "like that, and he was a master of none."
The Cardinals need "to get him into his right rhythm," Matheny said. "Every time he's really good you feel, you sense the rhythm that he's synched up. And if something is just a little bit off the kind of stuff that he has gets extra movement that takes him out of the zone. It's harnessing the stuff. For stuff pitchers, that's going to be his challenge."
It has been for a lot of the Opening Day starter.
From the beginning of spring training, Martinez has had a curious and flighty hold on his year, from changes to his schedule, to back-field starts, to off-field concerns that he, at times, described as "family matters." His first start of the year was the summation of an unusual spring when he walked six in 41/3 innings and lost. From there, he surged with six consecutive quality starts and two games of 10 or more strikeouts. He shaved his ERA down the lowest in the NL, at 1.62, when he felt pain near his shoulder and went on the DL.
In four starts since coming back, it's doubled to 3.24.
Before he went awry, his defense did.
In the first inning, Jose Aguilar skied a high and deep fly ball to left field that, off the bat, appeared to have the distance to clear the wall for a three-run homer. That's how Ozuna played it. The Cardinals' left fielder, who won a Gold Glove last year, ranged back and leaped to get his glove over the wall. The ball came down to his right, at the base of the ball. The carom took the ball to Pham and gave Aguilar a two-run double that erased the Cardinals' lead. The Brewers never did what Ozuna did _ looked back.
In the third inning, Martinez committed two misplays that hastened the unraveling. An error by Carpenter allowed Lorenzo Cain to reach.
He scored on Travis Shaw's one-out double.
Shaw took third on a wild pitch, and soon after Martinez went into his windup, brought around his arm, and lost his grip on the ball before he got it past his shoulder. The ball popped up and away from the mound, rolling eventually toward the third-base line. Martinez spun away from the pitch and to the other side of the mound. That allowed Shaw to score easily from third on the wild pitch that didn't come close to home plate.
A home run, a single, a walk, and another single fed a three-run fourth inning for the Brewers and what would be Martinez's last inning.
The Brewers stacked their lineup with lefties against Martinez because manager Craig Counsell said that is who has had the best success against the Cardinals' starter. The first time through the lineup, the Brewers' lefties went 1-for-6. The right-handed batters went 3-for-3. That would balance out as Martinez allowed eight hits and seven runs (five earned) through four innings.
In losing a series at Philadelphia to start this road trip, the Cardinals got 132/3 innings from their starters and 13 innings from the bullpen. With Michael Wacha back in St. Louis for an MRI to determine the severity of an oblique strain, the Cardinals promoted John Gant to give them innings coverage and possibly start Monday in Wacha's place. The hope for the team _ and there is a lot of hope when it comes to their decisions _ was to get a worthy start from Martinez and save the bullpen an evening. If not, they had nine relievers available.
How poorly Thursday went was revealed in the eighth inning.
Even with the added arm to the bullpen, the Cardinals turned to infielder Greg Garcia to pitch the final inning. Matheny is loath to use a position player to pitch, and he has done so twice this month. Garcia remained in the game after getting a pinch-hit that momentarily gave the Cardinals a flicker of offense. They loaded the bases with no one out in the top of the eighth inning.
True to the evening, they didn't score a run.
