Right-hander Todd Wellemeyer, though walking seven batters and hitting two, wasn't scored on from the second through the sixth innings on Sunday. But, in the first, before he could record his third strikeout of the inning, he had walked three and allowed four runs.
"He pitched second baseman (Rickie) Weeks Hall of Fame-like (Wellemeyer fanned Weeks) and then it just got away from him," said manager Tony La Russa. "To his credit, he didn't give up. He hung in there and gave us a chance to get back into the game." Wellemeyer has a 5.87 earned run average through eight starts (he is 3-4) and has only 10 perfect innings this season. This begs the question: Is he healthy?
"There's no doubt in my mind that he is," said La Russa. "He's shown enough to where we've got to stay with him."
The Cardinals are 4-9 in 13 games since the night center fielder Rick Ankiel (bruised right shoulder) was hurt and 1-4 since the night right fielder Ryan Ludwick (strained right hamstring) got hurt.
BREWERS 8, CARDINALS 2: The Cardinals assured themselves of their third consecutive series loss by dropping the first two of this three-game set. In their previous two series -- with Cincinnati and Pittsburgh -- the Cardinals lost the first two games and won the last one. They trailed 4-2 after six innings but RHP Blaine Boyer served up a three-run homer to Brewers 1B Prince Fielder in the seventh.
