After sweeping the Rockies for their seventh win in the last nine games, the Brewers travel to Florida for a four-game series against a young Marlins team that has won four in a row. Right-hander Dave Bush is scheduled to start Friday's series opener for the visitors against rookie right-hander Ricky Nolasco.
Milwaukee has won or tied each of its last three series, but it has not won back-to-back series since taking two of three from the Reds and sweeping the Indians at Miller Park on June 12-18. Now the team is taking a series-by-series approach.
"We've got to go to Florida and win three out of four if we want to stay in this. Then we go to Houston and we have to take two out of three from them," said shortstop Bill Hall, who hit his team-best 28th home run in Thursday's win.
"That's our focus: Win series. We feel like we'll be right where we need to be if we keep winning series."
Bush pitched into the eighth inning in his last start and delivered a key, two-run single on the way to his third win in four decisions. It was the kind of performance typical of Bush at home, but he has struggled on the road, going 3-5 with a 5.78 ERA in 14 appearances including 13 starts.
Since the All-Star break, Nolasco is 5-2 with a 2.70 ERA. In his last start, Nolasco battled for six innings, giving up three runs on nine hits in a loss to Atlanta.
The Marlins, who were off Thursday, are coming off a three-game sweep of Washington and have won four straight overall. Miguel Cabrera belted two home runs Wednesday and became the fifth active player to reach 100 career home runs before age 24, joining Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Ken Griffey Jr. and Andruw Jones.
At 23 years and 127 days, Cabrera is the sixth-youngest player in league history to reach that mark.
"He's just a great player, no doubt about it," Marlins manager Joe Girardi said. "He's been a great hitter since he came up in 2003."
Pitching matchup
MIL: RHP Dave Bush (9-9, 4.71 ERA)
Bush has gone 3-1 with a 3.46 ERA in August.
FLA: RHP Rickey Nolasco (11-8, 4.14 ERA)
Josh Johnson (11 wins), Nolasco (11) and Scott Olsen (10) are the first trio of rookies from the same team to win 10 or more games since Joe Black, Billy Loes and Ben Wade did so for the 1952 Brooklyn Dodgers.
Player to watch
Third baseman David Bell snapped an 0-for-16 drought by going 2-for-5 in Thursday's win with two runs scored and an RBI. He wasn't the only Brewer contributing; the team collected 10 hits in the game for the first time since July 30 and scored in the double digits for the first time since July 24. Let's do it!