St. Louis slugger Paul Goldschmidt clubbed three home runs on Friday night, leading the Cardinals to a 9-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park.
Goldschmidt entered the game hitting .359 with a 1.114 OPS against the Brewers in his career. He’s a career .407 hitter with a 1.271 OPS in Milwaukee.
Freddy Peralta fell behind 3-0 in the first inning but the Brewers managed to tie the game 3-3 when Ryan Braun clubbed a three run homer off of Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty.
Peralta allowed singles to Flaherty and Matt Carpenter to start the fourth inning and Brewers skipper Craig Counsell had seen enough. Matt Albers came on and held the Cardinals to a single run for a 4-3 St. Louis lead.
The Brewers evened the score again in the fourth inning on a Yasmani Grandal sacrifice fly. But Goldschmidt struck again with a solo home run off of Brewers reliever Taylor Williams. He later clubbed a three-run homer to blow the game open.
The three homer game was the second of Goldschmidt’s career.
Christian Yelich closed out the scoring for the Brewers in the eighth when he clubbed his second home run of the season.
Brewers pitching also surrendered three home runs in their 5-4 opening day victory on Thursday.
Game three of the four game series is Saturday evening. Brandon Woodruff faces Dakota Hudson in the pitching matchup.