Ageless Albert Pujols tortures Brewers as they drop big series to Cardinals in St. Louis

ST. LOUIS — Good riddance, Albert Pujols.

That's undoubtedly what the Milwaukee Brewers are thinking after the future Hall of Famer blasted two of the St. Louis Cardinals' four home runs on Sunday afternoon to win the teams' National League Central Division rubber match, 6-3, at Busch Stadium.

Pujols, who will be retiring after this season's swan song in St. Louis, homered in the second inning and then put the game out of reach with a three-run shot off Taylor Rogers in the eighth. Tyler O'Neill and Dylan Carlson also went deep.

"He's a Hall-of-Fame player, and today he showed us why," said manager Craig Counsell.

Hunter Renfroe's second-inning homer off Miles Mikolas and Rowdy Tellez's ninth-inning homer off Ryan Helsley accounted for the Brewers' tallies as they return to Milwaukee once again 1 ½ games behind the Cardinals in the standings.

They're also 1 1/2 games out of the race for the third wild-card spot in the National League.

BOX SCORE: Cardinals 6, Brewers 3

A terrific pitching day by both teams continued into the eighth inning.

Mikolas had retired 20 of 22 batters since allowing Renfroe's homer in the second, following a three-strikeout seventh turned in by the Brewers' Matt Bush.

Rogers (1-6), appearing in consecutive games for the first time with Milwaukee, opened his outing by striking out Lars Nootbaar. But on the very next pitch, Carlson homered just over the wall in left to give the Cardinals their first lead of the game.

O'Neill followed with an infield single, and third baseman Luis Urías made matters worse with an ill-advised throw past Rowdy Tellez at first base.

Rogers walked Paul Goldschmidt next, then got to within an out of keeping it at just a one-run deficit before Pujols blasted a three-run shot way out to left-center to put the game out of reach and end Rogers' day.

Coming into the game, Rogers had allowed a total of one homer for the season.

"He just made some mistakes, and some good hitters put some good swings on some mistakes," Counsell said.

Tellez's homer came with two outs in the ninth, but Helsley closed the door from there.

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Coming in on the heels of a couple shaky starts, Aaron Ashby was borderline dominant his first two times through the order as he allowed only two balls out of the infield.

Both of those came in the second inning, on a laser-beam homer to left from Pujols and a double to right two batters later by Tommy Edman.

Ashby, who'd been staked to a 2-0 lead in the top of the second on a two-run homer by Renfroe — his 20th, and first since July 31 — recovered by retiring eight straight after the double.

He'd retired 11 of 12 into the sixth before making his next mistake, which O'Neill deposited onto the grass in straightaway center field to make it a tie ballgame.

It marked the first time since July 2 Ashby had allowed multiple homers in a game and just the second time on the year.

Mikolas (9-9), who'd been destroyed for 10 runs on 14 hits over 2 ⅔ innings in his previous start against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, was near untouchable following Renfroe's blast.

He retired 10 in a row and 17 of 19 through seven innings with Milwaukee managing only a pair of singles over that span.

Ashby pitched six innings in all, the second time he'd thrown at least that many since June 4. He allowed three hits and walked a pair — perhaps the biggest plus to come out of the start — and struck out five over 79 pitches.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Albert Pujols tortures Brewers as they drop big series to Cardinals