MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers pushed a season-high 10 games over .500 and five games up on the rest of the National League Central with a 6-4 win over the Cubs on Thursday at American Family Field.

It¡¯s amazing what team speed can do -- especially when it¡¯s mixed with a dose of power.

¡°That¡¯s the kind of team we have this year,¡± said Brewers catcher Gary S¨¢nchez after deciding the game with the latter. ¡°We¡¯ve got a fast team. I¡¯m fast myself.¡±

Statcast might have something to say about S¨¢nchez¡¯s self-assessment, but there¡¯s no doubt that being fleet-footed on the bases set up the Brewers for victory. Third-base coach Jason Lane¡¯s aggressive send of outfielder Sal Frelick in the second inning opened up a three-run scoring rally and Blake Perkins and Brice Turang combined to manufacture one go-ahead run in the seventh. But it was the not so fleet-footed S¨¢nchez who put the Brewers ahead for good with a full-count, two-out, two-run home run in the eighth to cap his three-RBI afternoon.

All of the Brewers¡¯ runs scored with two outs; seven of their nine hits came with two strikes.

¡°You¡¯ve got to have multiple ways to beat a team,¡± Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said. ¡°¡®Offense¡¯ means you¡¯re capable of doing a lot of different things. I think it got proved out a little bit again today. [The Cubs] are coming off a losing streak and they¡¯re swinging the bat way better than they did during that streak, and we had to do everything we could to win that ballgame.¡±

By taking three of four games in the series from Craig Counsell and the Cubs, Milwaukee (33-23) pushed Chicago (28-29) down to third place in the NL Central standings. The idle Cardinals (27-27), winners of 12 of their last 15 games, moved up to second place.

¡°I think there¡¯s a little something extra to [this series],¡± said Brewers starter Colin Rea, who pitched parts of at least six innings for the eighth time in 11 outings and came away with a no-decision. ¡°Today was one of those hard-fought wins. We just kept competing.¡±

The Brewers won despite their best reliever, Bryan Hudson, surrendering game-tying home runs in successive innings in the seventh (Seiya Suzuki¡¯s two-run shot) and the eighth (Christopher Morel¡¯s two-out solo homer). That, after Hudson allowed only one homer in his first 20 appearances this season including none in his last 17 games -- a dominant stretch in which Hudson had a 0.36 ERA.

Hudson¡¯s catcher helped bail him out. The Brewers signed S¨¢nchez to mash against left-handers but he hit Thursday¡¯s go-ahead shot off a Cubs righty, Tyson Miller.

¡°He¡¯s going to have some strikeouts, but he¡¯s dangerous and everybody in the league knows it,¡± Murphy said. ¡°He¡¯s kind of shoved it in our face a little bit, like, ¡®Hey man, I can hit more than lefties.¡¯ It¡¯s pretty cool.¡±

Just as cool were the runs the Brewers manufactured.

Against Cubs starter Jameson Taillon in the second inning, S¨¢nchez made it a 1-1 game by lifting a sacrifice fly for the second out of the frame -- but Frelick made it a bigger inning by punching a single that wound up producing two more runs. Frelick scored all the way from first base with a perfect slide on Joey Ortiz¡¯s double, and Ortiz then scored on Perkins¡¯ base hit to give the Brewers a 3-1 lead.

¡°If Sal is out there, like a lot of guys would be -- that doesn¡¯t go unnoticed when you can do those little things,¡± Murphy said. ¡°Those are the things that excite me.¡±

In the seventh, with the game tied at 3-3, Perkins singled with two outs, stole second and took third on a wild pitch before Turang raced down the first base line on a swinging bunt single that gave the Brewers another lead.

Murphy used one of his favorite words to describe that kind of offense: Relentless.

¡°You do that over and over, you¡¯re going to put yourself in position to win,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m proud of these guys, for playing this way.¡±

¡°We never give up,¡± Rea said. ¡°We keep competing. We take anything we can get and take advantage of it.¡±