Cardinals-Brewers Preview
Jaime Garcia made the necessary adjustments to bounce back from his shortest outing in nearly four years for the St. Louis Cardinals. The veteran southpaw hopes much doesn't change from his history against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Garcia seeks his fifth straight win over the Brewers when the visiting Cardinals go for a sweep at Miller Park on Wednesday.
St. Louis (28-25) pounded out 26 hits and 16 runs in taking the first two games of this series. Matt Carpenter has totaled seven runs while going 4 for 5 in each game, including a double and two triples with two RBIs in Tuesday's 10-3 victory.
Jedd Gyorko added a three-run home run, and the Cardinals finished with 14 hits for their fourth win in five meetings this season against Milwaukee (23-29) and fifth straight victory at Miller Park.
Garcia (4-4, 3.47 ERA) entered Friday's game against Washington coming off a pair of ineffective starts in which he allowed 15 hits and eight runs in 7 1/3 innings.
However, the left-hander regained control of his sinking fastball to hold the Nationals to a pair of runs in seven innings during a 6-2 win.
''You can tell when his (sinker) is there,'' manager Mike Matheny said of Garcia, who opened the game with four scoreless innings. ''He had very good movement and used his changeup and slider, but the sinker was a great pitch for him tonight.''
Garcia previously posted his shortest outing since June 5, 2012, with 2 1/3 innings while allowing 10 hits and five runs in a 7-2 loss to Arizona on May 22.
''I made some adjustments I needed to make,'' Garcia said. ''That's part of baseball, that's part of pitching.''
The southpaw is 10-4 with a 2.45 ERA in 17 regular-season starts against the Brewers. Garcia has a 1.45 ERA and 0.72 WHIP in five matchups since the beginning of 2015, winning the last four.
His only one this season was a one-hitter April 14 in which he walked one and struck out 13 in a 7-0 win. It was his fourth career complete game and first since May 6, 2011 - also against the Brewers.
Ryan Braun has faced Garcia more than any other big league hitter, batting .204 with two home runs in 54 at-bats. Braun returned Tuesday after missing two games with neck stiffness, contributing an RBI double.
Zach Davies (2-3, 5.40) finally grabbed his first career win at Miller Park in seven tries Friday and will try to make it two straight there. The second-year pitcher allowed five runs - two earned - in 5 2/3 innings of a 9-5 victory over Cincinnati.
All three runs on Adam Duvall's first-inning homer became unearned after a postgame scoring change took away a two-out double from the previous hitter, Jay Bruce, and gave outfielder Ramon Flores an error.
"It's frustrating on my part," Davies said. "I know that if something like that happens in the field, it's my job to get back after it. And I left a curveball up for a strike and got crushed."
However, Davies retired the next 10 hitters and was good enough to improve his career numbers at Miller Park to 1-3 with a 4.81 ERA. He has a 3.00 ERA in his last three outings there.