St. Louis Cardinals Lose Pitcher Justin Bruihl to Ankle Injury in 7th Inning Collapse Against Brewers

The St. Louis Cardinals had control of Monday night’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers until one play unraveled everything. Not just the scoreboard but a pitcher’s ankle too.

Justin Bruihl left the game in the seventh inning with a sprained left ankle after he tried to field a dribbler between the mound and third base. Garrett Mitchell reached on the infield single, and Bruihl went down in the process. He couldn’t continue, leaving the bullpen to handle a high-leverage spot with a 3-0 lead suddenly feeling fragile.

Ryan Fernandez came in. Things got worse fast.

Sal Frelick doubled, putting two runners in scoring position. Cooper Pratt reached on a chopper that Fernandez couldn’t handle cleanly. Then David Hamilton crushed a two-run double. Brice Turang made it a four-run inning with a two-run single. Just like that, 3-0 became 3-4.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Derrick Goold posted the official update from the team. “#stlcards lefty Justin Bruihl left the game with a sprained left ankle, per #Cardinals official.”

Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat added more detail later, noting Bruihl “appeared to tweak his ankle while fielding an infield dribbler” and that he would likely go for additional testing. The next step depends on test results, but a trip to the injured list is possible.

That would be a real problem for the Cardinals. Bruihl was their only left-handed option out of the pen for that stretch of the game. Losing him means the bullpen gets thinner at a time when the division race is tightening.

The loss drops St. Louis to 47-41, third place in the NL Central. They’re now 7.5 games behind the first-place Brewers. A game that felt controlled in the early innings turned into the kind of loss that sticks with a team.

Miles Mikolas started for the Cardinals and pitched decently, but the bullpen couldn’t hold the line after the injury. It’s the kind of domino effect that feels avoidable in the moment but just happens in baseball sometimes.

The Cardinals get a chance to bounce back Tuesday. But they’ll likely do it without Bruihl, and they’ll need someone else to step up in the middle innings if the game gets tight again.