CHICAGO _ The Milwaukee Brewers bid adieu to the Chicago Cubs in fine fashion on Sunday afternoon.
Led by another solid start by Wily Peralta and a two-run second inning against National League Cy Young Award candidate Kyle Hendricks, the Brewers beat the Cubs, 3-1, at Wrigley Field in the teams' final meeting of 2016.
Chris Carter also homered for Milwaukee, which won five of its final seven games against playoff-bound Chicago and three out of four in the weekend series at Wrigley Field
Hendricks struck out the side in the first inning, capping the frame with Carter's team-record 189th of the season. The second was a different story, with the Brewers singling four times to grab a 2-0 lead.
Hernan Perez led off with a single, stole second, went to third on Orlando Arcia's groundout and scored on Martin Maldonado's single. Michael Reed _ starting in left field for Ryan Braun _ followed with another single to put two on for Peralta.
A .118 hitter coming in but with five RBIs, he added to that total by singling to center to make it 2-0. The two runs equaled the total surrendered by Hendricks in his last six starts at Wrigley Field, a span of 40 2/3 innings.
Peralta also got it done on the mound.
After pitching a 1-2-3 first, he allowed multiple baserunners in the second, third and fourth innings only to extricate himself each time. His best escape job came in the third, when the Cubs loaded the bases against him with one out, and he struck out cleanup hitter Ben Zobrist and got Addison Russell to pop out to Carter.
Peralta stranded Anthony Rizzo at third after his one-out double in the fifth before his luck ran out in the sixth thanks to a miscue by Domingo Santana.
With Miguel Montero on first and two outs, Cubs manager Joe Maddon pinch-hit Tommy La Stella for Hendricks, and La Stella lined a shot to the gap in left-center that Santana allowed to skip past him. The ball rolled all the way to the wall, allowing Montero to come around to score on what was ruled a double and Chicago to halve the deficit.
Peralta (7-10) quickly got Dexter Fowler for the third out and departed having allowed nine hits and a walk while striking out five in his 93-pitch outing.
Hendricks (15-8), meanwhile, allowed six hits and didn't issue a walk while striking out nine in his six-inning stint.
In eight starts since returning to the Brewers' rotation on Aug. 9, Peralta has failed to go six innings just once. The one run allowed matched a season low, as Peralta dropped his ERA to 5.21.
Milwaukee got a big insurance run in the eighth courtesy of Carter. Facing Felix Pena, who was brought in after Travis Wood recorded the first two outs of the inning, Carter hit a mile-high homer that just made it into the left-field bleachers to stretch the Brewers' lead to 3-1.
Carter is now one homer and two RBIs shy of tying his career highs, set in 2014 in Houston.
Carlos Torres pitched a scoreless seventh and eighth. Tyler Thornburg notched his 11th save but had to earn it after putting two on with one out in the ninth before striking out Kris Bryant and Rizzo to end it.
