PHILADELPHIA _ Just when the game appeared to be slipping from the Brewers' grasp Saturday night, Domingo Santana delivered a clutch RBI single in the ninth inning to help Milwaukee pull out a 9-8 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, halting its season-high losing streak of six games.
It looked like for a while that not even a seven-run lead would be enough for the Brewers on this night.
After Ryan Braun's three-hit, four-RBI game and Brent Suter's six-inning start built a seemingly comfortable cushion, a blowup performance by the bullpen left them tied through eight innings.
In the starting lineup for the first time since Tuesday, Braun finished a triple shy of the cycle and reached base in each of his first four plate appearances when he singled in the first, doubled in the third, homered in the fifth and walked in the seventh.
He was lifted in the middle of the seventh, presumably for rest.
Suter, meanwhile, did his part by scattering five hits and one run while not issuing a walk and striking out five in an 85-pitch outing.
Philadelphia made things interesting with a four-run seventh against Oliver Drake, who came on after manager Craig Counsell decided to pull the plug after six innings with Suter cruising.
But Drake responded with a blowup outing reminiscent of Carlos Torres' on Friday. He retired just one of the six batters he faced, with Cesar Hernandez's three-run homer pulling the Phillies to within 8-5.
The Phillies went on to put the tying run at the plate with two outs in the form of cleanup hitter Tommy Joseph, however, Jared Hughes struck him out to end the threat.
Next up was Jacob Barnes, who came in having not allowed a run over his previous nine outings. He gave up two singles and then a three-run homer to No. 8 Cameron Rupp to tie it before finally settling down and preserving the tie.
Santana then delivered in the ninth against Phillies closer Hector Neris, and Corey Knebel closed out the game for his 17th save.
The game got underway after a 26-minute delay caused by storms in the area. After a quiet first two innings in which just one base-runner reached against right-hander Jeremy Hellickson, the Brewers put together their biggest inning of the road trip to date.
Even more impressive, all the clutch hitting came with two outs.
Orlando Arcia led off the third with a single to center. After Suter failed to advance him with a bunt and Eric Sogard struck out, Eric Thames drew a walk to bring Braun to the plate.
He followed by collecting what seemed like Milwaukee's first clutch hit in forever as he rifled a double into the right-field corner to earn the Brewers their first lead in the series at 2-0.
Braun was able to advance to third on the throw home, and not long thereafter a wild pitch allowed him to scamper home to make it 3-0.
The Brewers weren't done. Travis Shaw followed with a double to center, then Domingo Santana singled to center to score Shaw and just like that the lead had doubled to 4-0.
To further illustrate how rare the outburst was, consider this: Milwaukee came into the game having scored two, three, two, two and one run in its five previous games on the road trip.
Given some breathing room, Suter breezed.
He had a shaky second, allowing a single and ground-rule double but recovered to end the frame with a pair of strikeouts. Suter erased a Thames error with a 4-6-3 double play in the third that was aided by a Counsell challenge, then fanned two more to end the fourth to tie his season high of five.
The Brewers got some insurance in the fifth, with Braun this time delivering a two-run homer to left-center after a Thames single. Braun entered the night a career .383 hitter with 10 homers and 29 RBIs in 29 previous games in Philadelphia.
Suter made a mistake to Odubel Herrera to open the bottom of the frame, and he deposited a solo homer in the right-field stands. But he got back on track quickly and retired the next three batters to limit the damage to the lone tally.
Braun drew a one-out walk in the seventh then came all the way around to score after the Phillies threw the ball around following a pickoff. Shaw, up next, banged a homer off the top of the wall in right-center that was initially ruled a double before the umpires conferred and allowed him to circle the bases.
