Tyrone Taylor powers Brewers past Cardinals

MILWAUKEE — Tyrone Taylor hit a three-run homer to help the Milwaukee Brewers to a 6-4 win against the visiting St. Louis Cardinals and earn a split of the four-game series on Thursday afternoon.

Willy Adames also homered for Milwaukee, which won the opener of the series before dropping the next two.

Brewers starter Jason Alexander (2-0) allowed four runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings. He struck out five and walked two.

Brad Boxberger and Devin Williams combined for 2 1/3 innings of scoreless relief before Josh Hader pitched struck out two in the ninth for his 21st save

Cardinals starter Dakota Hudson (5-4) allowed five runs and seven hits in 4 1/3 innings. He struck out two and walked three.

Lars Nootbaar homered among two hits. Nolan Arenado and Nolan Gorman also had two hits apiece for St. Louis.

The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the first inning when Paul Goldschmidt doubled with Gorman on first. Gorman beat the throw home and the ball caromed away to Alexander, who made a wild throw to third to allow Goldschmidt to score.

The Brewers got a run back in the bottom of the first on a run-scoring ground out by Rowdy Tellez to make it 2-1.

The Brewers didn't score after loading the bases with no outs in the third, but came back with three runs in the fourth on Taylor's towering home run.

Andrew McCutchen started the inning with a single, but was thrown out while trying to score standing up on a base hit by Victor Caratini. Taylor stepped up, however, and blasted the three-run homer for a 4-2 lead.

Nootbaar homered to start the fifth and trim the lead to 4-3. Adames homered to lead off the bottom half of the inning and re-establish the two-run lead at 5-3.

The Cardinals put runners on second and third with no outs in the sixth, but only pushed one run across on a sacrifice fly by Juan Yepez to make it 5-4.

The Brewers came back with a sacrifice fly by Jace Peterson in the eighth to push the lead to 6-4.