MILWAUKEE -- To honor the late Bruce Seid, Milwaukee's director of amateur scouting who passed away suddenly Tuesday at 53, the Brewers wore a patch that simply read "BRUCE" on their left sleeves Friday night.
Coincidence or not, the three players on the Brewers roster selected by Seid in the 2009 draft, his first as the team's scouting director, played major roles in Milwaukee ending its nine-game losing streak.
Scooter Gennett and Khris Davis drove in a combined five runs, while Mike Fiers tossed 6 2/3 strong innings to lead the Brewers to a 6-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Miller Park.
"It's a tough loss for us, and I think if we can play for him and honor him with some wins, that's the least we could do," Gennett said. "It's nice to do that tonight.
"It's weird how things work out."
Since Mike Fiers was recalled from Triple-A Nashville on Aug. 9, the Brewers have won 10 games. The right-hander now has five of those victories himself after allowing just two runs over 6 2/3 innings Friday.
He improved to 5-1 with a 1.94 ERA in his six big-league starts this season, continuing on as Milwaukee's most consistent pitcher over the last month.
"We needed a win here pretty soon," Fiers said. "I just wanted to give them a quality start, keep the runs as low as possible and give our team a chance to win. It's big relief but we have more work to do tomorrow."
While Fiers set the tone on the mound, the Brewers jumped out to an early lead in the third inning, something they haven't been able to do on the losing streak.
After consecutive singles from Lyle Overbay and Jean Segura, Fiers dropped down a perfect sacrifice bunt to advance the runners. Gennett followed with a single back up the middle to put Milwaukee up 2-0.
It was the big hit the Brewers have been lacking over their last nine games.
"I was just trying to make something happen," Gennett said. "We talked about it yesterday. We've been hitting the ball good, it just wasn't falling for us. Tonight it was good to see some balls fall, and when we got runners in scoring position we took care of business.
"We really haven't had that early lead in a while. Especially against a team like this, you want to get ahead early."
The Brewers didn't stop there, adding a pair of runs in the fifth on two-out RBI hits from Gennett and Lucroy.
After the Cardinals cut Milwaukee's lead to 4-1 on a solo home run from Jhonny Peralta in the sixth, Davis responded in the bottom of the inning with a two-run blast.
"I liked how we came out, I thought the energy again was good," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "When you lose this many ballgames, sometimes as much as you want to come out and still fight and still have good energy, it's difficult.
"These guys have done a good job with that and hopefully moving forward, we'll continue to play the type of game we played the last two days and we'll see what happens."
One win certainly doesn't erase the sting of what transpired over the past week for the Brewers, but getting the proverbial monkey off their backs left a good feeling in the Milwaukee clubhouse.
The Brewers played well Thursday but just didn't come up with a big hit when they needed one. They carried things over to Friday and a positive result came of their efforts.
"All those losses in a row, we didn't play well, but I think we've turned it around and are playing some good baseball right now," Fiers said of the last two games. "We're hitting the ball, we're pitching. It's only a matter of time before it turns around for us."
With the win, the Brewers pulled to within three games of the Cardinals in the National League Central. Atlanta fell to Miami on Friday, leaving Milwaukee one game up on the Braves in the race for the second wild-card spot with 21 games to play.
"I think this was a good momentum shift," Gennett said while acknowledging the Brewers still have plenty of work to do. "We're still playing our same game; we're not really changing anything or doing anything different. But our luck, it looks like it's coming around. It's nice to see that."
Gennett exits: After driving in three runs, Gennett was replaced at second base by Elian Herrera prior to the top of the eighth on Friday.
Gennett has been bothered by a right quadriceps injury for most of the second half of the season and decided to play it safe with the Brewers holding a four-run lead at the time.
"I haven't been on base in a while, so I think a lot of it was it was just a little tired," Gennett said of the quadriceps. "(Four) runs at the time for a lead, it was just to keep it safe. I haven't really been on base, haven't really been playing hard in the past month.
"(Thursday) and (Friday) were really the only two games I played hard, been 100 percent. It was more just being safe."
Much ado about nothing: After Brewers closer Francisco Rodriguez got Cardinals catcher A.J. Pierzynski to fly out to end the game, a minor skirmish broke out between the two teams.
Rodriguez appeared to exchange words with Pierzynski, as Cardinals first-base coach Chris Maloney jumped in.
"That was just something that we thought happened and I don't think it happened," Roenicke said. "It was no big deal."
"Apparently when A.J. was jogging off he brushed against Rodriguez and he didn't like it," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "There was nothing said. Nothing. He didn't think he touched him, but he got closer than what they wanted.
"So he just turned around and asked our first base coach, Chris Maloney, what was that was all about. Nobody even knew what was going on."
Rodriguez was at his locker when the media arrived in the clubhouse, but he left and didn't return to make himself available for comment.
"I don't know what's going on. Didn't say a word," Pierzynski told St. Louis reporters following the game. "I didn't know what was going on. You can watch the replay and clearly see I didn't touch him or say a word to him.
"Just add it to the book."
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