Ramirez homers, scores twice as Brewers beat Cards, 6-3

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Aramis Ramirez had three hits, including his 22nd home run, to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a 6-3 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday night, September 8th.

Ricky Weeks added a solo home run and Ryan Braun went 3 for 5 with a run scored for Milwaukee. Carlos Gomez went 2 for 4 and drove in two runs.

Ramirez, who also walked twice, reached base all five times he batted and scored twice. After a slow start, he has raised his average over the past 89 games from .218 to an even .300.

Mike Fiers (9-7) allowed one run and five hits in five innings and also got his first career RBI with a single in the second inning. He limited the Cardinals to five hits and three walks while striking out five. John Axford pitched a scoreless ninth for his 27th save.

Adron Chambers had an RBI triple for St. Louis. Jake Westbrook (13-11) went five innings and allowed three runs and seven hits.

Milwaukee improved to 15-4 in its last 19 games and pulled five games behind the Cardinals for the second wild card in the National League. St. Louis is one-half game up on the Dodgers for that spot with a four-game series against the Dodgers set for next weekend in Los Angeles.

The Cardinals — at 74-65 — have the same record they had after 139 games last season. St. Louis went on from there to capture its 11th World Series title.

The Brewers took a 2-0 lead in the second as Gomez's sacrifice drove in Ramirez, who had walked, and Fiers had his RBI single two batters later.

Daniel Descalso's two-out RBI single pulled St. Louis within a run in the bottom half of the inning.

However, Milwaukee regained its two-run lead in the third on a fielding error by Skip Shumaker on Corey Hart's grounder that scored Braun. Weeks' homer leading off the seventh off reliever Trevor Rosenthal made it 4-1.

The Cardinals pulled to 4-3 on Skip Schumacher's sacrifice fly in the eighth.

Ramirez went deep with one out the ninth against Fernando Salas to make it 5-3, and Gomez's RBI single closed the scoring.