Brewers starting pitcher Yovani Gallardo and center fielder Mark Kotsay contributed to the rocky start that gave the St. Louis Cardinals a 4-0 lead in an eventual 4-3 victory.
Gallardo, the ace of the staff with 17 regular-season wins and two solid playoff starts, needed six batters to record his first out. Kotsay short-circuited a rally in the top of the first with a baserunning blunder, then failed to make a diving catch in the bottom half of the inning.
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From there, each made positive contributions, but the damage was done as the Cardinals took a 2-1 lead in the National League Championship Series.
Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said before the game that he was trading offense for defense in giving Kotsay his first postseason start and his third start in center since June 13.
In the top of the first, Kotsay walked and reached second when Ryan Braun was hit by a pitch, but he got caught too far off second base and was doubled up on Prince Fielder's soft liner to end the Brewers' threat.
In the bottom of the inning, Kotsay couldn't make a diving catch of Jon Jay's looping fly, and Rafael Furcal scored on the play.
Roenicke said center fielder Carlos Gomez would have caught the ball but didn't second-guess himself for starting Kotsay against Chris Carpenter. "Gomez would have caught it. But Gomez, I didn't think he was an option for today's game. … I didn't think that was a good choice today."
Albert Pujols next ripped a first-pitch, ground-rule double to left-center to score Jay. After two walks and a run-scoring double-play grounder, David Freese's liner to right ticked off right fielder Corey Hart's glove at the warning track, scoring Holliday with the fourth run.
"I got a glove on it. It was tough. It's one of those things that I thought I should have caught it," Hart said.
Said Gallardo: "The first inning, I felt like I made some pretty good pitches, but they were able to fall in. After that, I just figured I had to keep it there and give the team a chance to come back and score some runs."
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