“I love throwing in these type games,” Woodruff said. “That’s just what I like doing. … I just feel like I can slow the game down. We made some good defensive plays early on. They had some traffic early, but I was able to get through those innings and was able to start making pitches.”

Woodruff struck out 10 and walked one as he beat the Cardinals for the second time this season. He threw a season-high 108 pitches, 73 for strikes.

“The story of the game was Woody,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “It was just as good a start I think that we’ve seen since the (CC) Sabathia start at the end of ’08, in a big game, in a regular-season game, to deliver right there and not only deliver but help us for tomorrow, it can’t be understated, what he did.”

Josh Hader pitched a perfect ninth for his 13th save in 15 tries.

Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright (5-3) retired the first seven batters he faced before wriggling out of a two-on, one-out jam in the third.

Wainwright wasn’t so fortunate in the fourth as Braun drove his second pitch of the inning into the Cardinals’ bullpen. Three pitches later, Vogelbach smashed an 89 mph delivery 420 feet into the left-center bleachers to make it 2-0.

“Their guy just did a great job,” Wainwright said. “I mean, he was filthy tonight. I thought I saw him at 98 miles an hour a couple times with a great breaking ball and a couple of really good changeups he throws, so I needed to put zeros up there to match him them and they got a couple of runs across on me.”