ESPN News Services1 Minute Read
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers clinched the NL Central title for the third time in six seasons Tuesday night, despite a 4-1 loss to the last-place St. Louis Cardinals and with the help of a come-from-behind win by the Atlanta Braves.
Milwaukee clinched its second division crown in three seasons when the Chicago Cubs dropped a 7-6 decision to the Braves.
The Milwaukee crowd roared as the ninth inning of the Cubs-Braves game was shown on the scoreboard.
The Brewers had clinched no worse than a wild-card berth on Friday, with a 16-1 win over the Marlins in Miami. But they missed two chances to clinch the division title by losing to Miami on Saturday and Sunday, scoring a total of five runs in those two games.
The division title did not come without some drama as the Braves had to overcome a six run deficit to beat the wild-card contending Cubs and eliminate them from the NL Central race.
The winning runs came in the bottom of the eighth inning after a fielding error by Seiya Suzuki. After Braves catcher Sean Murphy hit a fly ball to right field, Suzuki called off center fielder Cody Bellinger but apparently lost the fly ball in the lights and dropped it.
Drew Smyly (11-10) aided the comeback by throwing two wild pitches in the eighth, letting Matt Olson advance to third and setting the stage for pinch-runner Forrest Wall to steal second. Both runners easily scored on Suzuki’s error.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
