"For the longest time Friday night, it appeared the Milwaukee Brewers might lose a Zack Greinke-Lucas Harrell pitching matchup.

After dropping three in a row at home to St. Louis, you could almost feel the angst growing in Brewer Nation.

Coming to life after Harrell left the game, the Brewers scored eight runs in the last three innings to pull away to an 8-2 victory at Minute Maid Park.

Combined with the Cardinals' 11-8 home loss to Cincinnati, the Brewers boosted their lead in the NL Central to 8½ games with 23 games to play. Their magic number, which had stalled at 18 for three days, dropped to 16.

"Things didn't go our way when we played the Cardinals," said closer John Axford, who finished the victory. "It seemed like we were always playing from behind. We did it again today, but the breaks went our way."

Yes, they did, especially after rookie Taylor Green stroked a pinch-hit single with two outs in the seventh and the Brewers trailing, 2-0. Corey Hart followed with a towering pop fly down the left-field line that struck one of the roof supports in foul territory, making it a dead ball.

Otherwise, it probably would have been caught for the third out.

"I think it would have been caught," said manager Ron Roenicke. "It's hard to hit a ball that far up there."

Nyjer Morgan then had a tremendous at-bat against reliever Aneury Rodriguez, drawing an eight-pitch walk. David Carpenter took over for the Astros and uncorked a run-scoring wild pitch, followed by a two-run single by Ryan Braun and just like that, the Brewers had a 3-2 lead."