Jon Lester continues to prove a smart pickup for the Cardinals.
The left-hander went six innings and allowed two runs en route to his 200th career victory, which coincided with the ninth consecutive win for St. Louis. Lester is 4-1 with a 4.02 ERA since coming over from the Nationals.
“Obviously it’s a nice round number and it looks better than 199,” said Lester. “But I know the game has changed so much over the years with pitchers and going deep into games, getting W’s. You know I’ve seen analysts and stuff trying to take the W away from the starting pitcher and it doesn’t mean a lot, but I was brought up in this game that your name is in that score box the next day and it’s either going to have a W or an L next to it. Hopefully more times than not it’s got those W’s.”
With the win, Lester joined Jesse Haines, Bob Gibson, and Chuck Finley as the fourth pitcher to pick up their 200th win in a Cardinals uniform.
“It’s really fun to watch him go out and compete,” said Mike Shildt. “He’s like John Wayne, just got that true gift.”
St. Louis got off to a fast start with Nolan Arenado’s two-run homer in the first. That home run insured RBI’s number 100 and 101, which marks the first time a Cardinal has knocked in at least 100 runs since Matt Holliday did it back in 2012.
Lester did allow two solo home runs in the second, which allowed the Brewers to tie the game at two, but Lester stayed the course and kept his pitch count down the rest of the way. He left the game leading 3-2 after Yadier Molina put the Cards back ahead in the sixth.
Matt Carpenter pinch-hit for Lester and led off the seventh with a double, later scoring on Paul Goldschmidt’s sac fly. Molina added a little more insurance in the eighth with another RBI hit.
The bullpen then held the lead and preserved a 5-2 win for St. Louis to keep their streak and momentum alive.
The win kept St. Louis three games ahead of the Reds in the Wild Card race, while also moving them to four ahead of the Padres and 4 ½ ahead of the Phillies, who lost their game against the Orioles.
“We control our destiny. For a while there it didn’t look very good, but the one thing about this team man, we don’t get too high or too low. Everyone kind of stays even-keel and we know that it’s a long season,” said Arenado. “We’re just playing really good baseball right now, collectively. Everyone’s doing their job and so it’s a lot of fun.”
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