St. Louis Cardinals at Milwaukee Brewers: Final Score & Recap

The St. Louis Cardinals handed the Milwaukee Brewers a 4-1 defeat at American Family Field on September 26, 2023, overcoming a pre-game DiamondIQ model estimate that gave the home side a 66% chance of winning. St. Louis did its damage in a concentrated two-inning stretch, plating two runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth to build an insurmountable lead against a Milwaukee pitching staff that could not contain Cardinals hitters when it mattered most.

The decisive sequence began in the top of the fourth when Richie Palacios doubled off Adrian Houser, a swing that shifted win probability by plus-19.1% in St. Louis's favor and served as the single largest play of the game. Houser continued to struggle in the fifth, surrendering a Tommy Edman home run that added another plus-10.3% swing, followed immediately by a Jose Fermin fielders choice that contributed plus-10.0%. Milwaukee's lone bright spot came in the bottom of the third, when Carlos Santana doubled off Miles Mikolas to move the needle plus-13.1% for the Brewers, briefly keeping the game within reach before the Cardinals pulled away for good.

On the individual ledger, Mikolas was the performance anchor of the evening, finishing with a plus-30.5% WPA that dwarfed every other contributor in the game. Drew VerHagen and Bryse Wilson added plus-5.2% and plus-3.6% respectively out of the bullpen to close it out cleanly. Among position players, Palacios led all batters with a plus-16.9% WPA and plus-1.2 RE24, while Edman posted plus-13.8% WPA and plus-0.9 RE24. Santana was the top Milwaukee contributor at plus-8.2% WPA and plus-1.3 RE24, but the Brewers could not sustain the threat, finishing with a lone run against a Cardinals staff that allowed no errors across nine innings.