ST. LOUIS — All those clutch hits by Albert Pujols and the St. Louis Cardinals disappeared Thursday night.

Randy Wolf flummoxed the Cardinals with pitches that were slow, slower and slowest, leading the Milwaukee Brewers to a 4-2 victory that tied the NL championship series 2-all.

St. Louis scored 22 runs in the first 19 innings of the playoff series, including four in the first inning Wednesday. Though shut out through the rest of the way, the Cardinals held on to win 4-3 in Game 3.

But after solo homers put St. Louis up 2-0 through three innings Thursday, the Cardinals couldn’t put anything together. They went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and failed twice to get a man home from third with less than two outs.

Wolf baffled them with a changeup clocked consistently around 65 mph.

“We had a couple of chances to add a run and Wolf made outstanding pitches,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “These are productive guys. He just made reallygood pitches.”

Milwaukee ended an eight-game road losing streak in the postseason dating to the 1982 World Series opener at St. Louis.

Cardinals lefty Jaime Garcia faces Zack Greinke for the second time in the series in Game 5 on tonight. Either way, the best-of-seven NLCS will be decided back at Miller Park.

“It feels good to know that we’re at least going to get to go back home,” said Ryan Braun, who singled home the go-ahead run in the fifth.

Pujols, who was 6 for 7 with two intentional walks the previous two games, went 1 for 4 with a harmless single in the fifth.

Yadier Molina came up three times with runners in scoring position and made outs each time, grounding out with two on in the third, lining out to center with a man on second for the first out in the sixth and striking out with a runner on second to end the eighth.

Since the first inning of Wednesday’s game, the Cardinals are 0 for 15 with runners in scoring position.

Another so-so starting pitching performance didn’t help. After solo homers by Matt Holliday in the second and Allen Craig in the third gave St. Louis the lead, Kyle Lohse couldn’t hold it, allowing three runs in 4 1-3 innings to take the loss.

Wolf went seven innings for his first postseason win at age 35. He allowed six hits, struck out six and walked one.

The Cardinals couldn’t capitalize on their few opportunities. After Holliday’s homer they had runners on first and third with one out in the second, but Jon Jay’s chopper to first failed to score the run and Lohse struck out.

In the sixth, Holliday led off with a double and went to third on Molina’s liner. But Ryan Theriot struck out and Jay flied out to center.

Francisco Rodriguez allowed a hit in the eighth and John Axford finished for his second save of the series and third this postseason.

Jerry Hairston Jr. doubled twice with an RBI and Wolf hit one of the Brewers’ five doubles. Braun is batting .471 (16 for 34) in the postseason with two homers and nine RBIs.

Brewers 4, Cardinals 2 Milw. ab r h bi St. Louis ab r h bi

Morgan cf-rf 4 1 2 0 Furcal ss 5 0 0 0

Kotsay rf 4 0 0 0 Craig rf 4 1 1 1

CGomz cf 1 0 0 0 Pujols 1b 4 0 1 0

Braun lf 5 0 2 1 Freese 3b 4 0 2 0

Fielder 1b 3 1 1 0 Hollidy lf 3 1 2 1

RWeks 2b 4 1 1 0 YMolin c 4 0 1 0

Counsll 2b 0 0 0 0 Theriot 2b 4 0 0 0

HrstnJr 3b 4 1 2 1 Jay cf 4 0 0 0

YBtncr ss 4 0 1 1 Lohse p 2 0 0 0

Kottars c 4 0 0 1 MBggs p 0 0 0 0

FrRdrg p 0 0 0 0 Rhodes p 0 0 0 0

Axford p 0 0 0 0 Dotel p 0 0 0 0

Wolf p 2 0 1 0 Punto ph 1 0 0 0

Lucroy c 1 0 0 0 Salas p 0 0 0 0

Brkmn ph 1 0 1 0

Totals 36 4 10 4 Totals 36 2 8 2

Milwaukee 000 211 000 — 4

St. Louis 011 000 000 — 2

E — R.Weeks (2), Theriot (1). DP — St. Louis 1. LOB — Milwaukee 8, St. Louis 8. 2B — Morgan (1), Fielder (2), Hairston Jr. 2 (3), Wolf (1), Holliday (1), Y.Molina (2). HR — Craig (1), Holliday (1). S — Wolf.

Milwaukee IP H R ER BB SO

Wolf W,1-0 7 6 2 2 1 6

Fr.Rodriguez H,2 1 1 0 0 0 1

Axford S,2-2 1 1 0 0 0 0

St. Louis IP H R ER BB SO

Lohse L,0-1 41/3 6 3 3 0 3

M.Boggs 1 3 1 1 0 0

Rhodes 2/3 0 0 0 0 1

Dotel 1 0 0 0 1 2

Salas 2 1 0 0 0 2

HBP — by Lohse (Morgan). T — 3:25. A — 45,606 (43,975).

ST. LOUIS — The final result wasn’t stunning. How the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers got there was.

With their two aces barely able to survive five innings and a light rain falling, it became a very strange game for something as important as Game 3 of the NL Championship Series.

But they all count, and Wednesday night’s 4-3 victory goes in the Cardinals’ corner, giving them a 2-1 advantage heading into tonight’s game.

This is an unusual spot for the Cardinals, who have played catch-up baseball for the last six weeks. So how will being in the driver’s seat affect them?

“We’ll see (tonight),” manager Tony La Russa said. “Our attitude is not to stop to think about it because there’s so much

to do.”

Game 3 might have been decided before it started when Brewers manager Ron Roenicke went with Mark Kotsay in center field over slumping Nyjer Morgan, reasoning that “something always good seems to happen when he’s in there.”

Well, not always.

Not only did Kotsay get doubled off second base on a flyball to squash a first-inning rally, but he missed a diving catch in center, allowing the Cardinals to score their first run.

By the time the first inning was over, the Brewers and starter Yovani Gallardo found themselves in a 4-0 hole.

Gallardo had trouble finding the strike zone and when he did, the Cardinals hit it.

Leadoff man Rafael Furcal got the ball rolling with a single, advancing to second base on a wild pitch before Jon Jay’s smash to center eluded Kotsay.

Albert Pujols then got into the act, driving home Jay with a double. Gallardo walked the next two before getting a double play that scored the third run. The fourth came on an RBI double by David Freese.

Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter was nearly as shaky as Gallardo, walking a batter and hitting another before Prince Fielder hit into a double play to end the short-lived rally.

In the second

inning, Carpenter allowed three straight hits and two runs. In the third, Kotsay atoned for one of his gaffes by hitting a 416-foot homer.

“It was a battle all night long,” Carpenter said. “My stuff was OK, but they worked me hard. They had great at-bats. . . . Our bullpen did a phenomenal job and we win. That’s what counts.”

---

Key moment

One, and pretty much done

Yovani Gallardo, who’s 1-7 with a 5.66 career mark against the Cardinals, trailed 2-0 after his first 12 pitches and barely made it out of the first trailing 4-0. The right- hander walked three batters, one of them intentionally, and the Brewers had Chris Narveson up in the bullpen before Yadier Molina grounded into a double play, scoring the fourth run, for his first outs.

Stars of the game

Cardinals bullpen

After Chris Carpenter turned over a precarious one-run lead to the Cardinals’ corps of relievers to begin the sixth inning, Fernando Salas, Lance Lynn, Marc Rzepczynski and Jason Motte shut down the Brewers to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Motte, who had two saves lasting more than an inning in September, got four outs for this save and struck out pinch-hitter Casey McGehee to end it.

Cardinals lead series 2-1

Best of seven; all games on TBS; x-if necessary

Milwaukee 9, St. Louis 6

St. Louis 12, Milwaukee 3

St. Louis 4,Milwaukee 3

Today:Milwaukee (Wolf 13-10) at St. Louis (Lohse 14-8), 6:05 p.m.

Friday: Milwaukee at St. Louis, 6:05 p.m.

x-Sunday: St. Louis at Milwaukee, 2:05 or 6:05 p.m.

x-Monday: St. Louis at Milwaukee, 6:05 p.m.

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