Brewers continue to be perfect over the Cardinals this season, have team's longest winning streak over rivals ever in series

These are banner days for the Milwaukee Brewers as far as the St. Louis Cardinals are concerned.

Thanks to a two-out, three-run home run in the seventh inning by Rhys Hoskins, the Brewers knocked off their National League Central rivals, 5-3, at American Family Field on Saturday night.

The blast helped move Milwaukee to 6-0 against St. Louis on the season, 8-0 dating to last season – the team's longest such winning streak in the series – and 11-1 in the teams' last 12 meetings.

It's been quite the run against a Cardinals team that has been the class of the division for the last decade-plus.

Box score: Brewers 5, Cardinals 3

"I think we're just playing good baseball right now," Hoskins said. "We were too when we played them in St. Louis. Little bit different. Getting the same results, but I think it's just the type of baseball that we're playing. We as a group never really feel like we're out of a game. Our pitching has been absolute nails keeping us in games, specifically in the division.

"That's a good combo, right?"

Good enough on Saturday to improve the Brewers to 24-15, 1 1/2 games ahead of the Chicago Cubs for first place in the standings. The Cardinals, losers of seven straight, dropped to 15-24 and are in last.

It had been mostly offensive frustration for the Brewers offense against right-hander Kyle Gibson, who was charged with two runs in his five innings of work.

Both came on hit by pitches – one against Jake Bauers with the bases loaded in the third that gave Milwaukee a 1-0 lead and the other on a pitch thrown by JoJo Romero with the bases loaded in the sixth that pulled the Brewers to within 3-2.

Gibson's counterpart, Freddy Peralta, was solid in his first game back from suspension as he allowed eight hits, three runs and a walk with eight strikeouts over six innings and 100 pitches.

Two of those runs scored in a frustrating fifth when a double, walk completed on a pitch-timer violation and fielding error by Peralta on a bunt set the stage for a single by Lars Nootbaar.

A two-out double by Nolan Gorman in the sixth then made it 3-1.

"Really good," is how manager Pat Murphy described Peralta's outing. "Freddy's got a lot of pressure on him to throw shutouts. He gives up three runs in six innings and it's like, 'What happened? Wow!'

"He'd take a few pitches back, I'm sure. But we put a lot on his shoulders. He gave us a six-inning outing. Credit to the Cardinals, too."

Milwaukee put together its game-turning rally in the seventh when William Contreras – who'd extended his on-base streak to 19 games with a first-inning double to tie Freddie Freeman for the longest active streak in the majors – walked with one out and Bauers singled with two outs to bring Hoskins to the plate against Andrew Kittredge.

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Hoskins quickly fell behind in the count, 0-2, before working his way back to 3-2.

The next pitch was a slider down and out of the zone that Hoskins reached down and somehow got enough muscle into that the ball carried just over the center field wall 407 feet away despite the best efforts of a leaping Michael Siani.

It wasn't quite as dramatic as the two-out, three-run homer hit by Willy Adames in the ninth inning win in Kansas City on Tuesday.

But still pretty darned good.

"I knew I got some good barrel to it," Hoskins said. "But the way some of those balls have been going and just the way he was tracking it I thought he was going to get some glove on it.

"Obviously he did, but I got just enough."

Peralta was already in the clubhouse doing his wrapup work for the night when Hoskins turned the game around. The TVs in the clubhouse are on a delay, but Peralta said he and the others know quickly when something big happens because they can feel the vibration of the crowd.

"I knew that something was going on," Peralta said. "I told the guys, 'Hey, something good happened! Let's see what it was. I'll take a base hit.' That's what I said. And then I saw the swing and the centerfielder going back and was like, 'Damn,' and it was a homer.

"It was perfect."

Bryan Hudson took the ball from Hoby Milner (1-0) and threw a scoreless eighth, then with Joel Payamps on bereavement leave it was Trevor Megill's turn to once again try to slam the door as closer.

He recorded the first two outs before allowing singles to Nootbaar and the struggling Paul Goldschmidt, who'd struck out in each of his previous four at-bats.

That brought up Nolan Arenado, who like Goldschmidt has crushed Milwaukee pitching over the course of his career.

But this time Arenado flied out to left, Megill had his fourth save and the Brewers were winners of their third straight with a chance to make it two straight series sweeps of the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers win 8th straight game over Cardinals, longest strek in series