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Brewers pound the Pirates

MILWAUKEE — Mike Cameron homered to cap a six-run seventh, Dave Bush tossed seven sharp innings and the Milwaukee Brewers shook off a slow start for a come-from-behind 10-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night.

J.J. Hardy also homered for Milwaukee, which leads the wild-card chase by three games with St. Louis playing Atlanta on Friday night. The Brewers are 4½ games behind Chicago in the NL Central after the Cubs lost earlier Friday to Washington.

Bush (8-9) continued his resurgence since a pair of losses in June.

The quiet right-hander allowed three runs off seven hits to improve to 6-2 in his last 11 starts, going at least seven innings in eight of those appearances.

The Brewers gave him plenty of offense, breaking the game open with a big seventh inning after Bush left, capped by Cameron’s two-run homer off reliever Sean Burnett that hit the right field foul pole and made it 10-3.

Milwaukee, which batted around in the inning, also got RBIs from Rickie Weeks, Hardy, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, marking the eighth time this season the Brewers have scored at least 10 runs.

Hardy hit his 20th home run of the season to begin the fifth and give Milwaukee a 4-2 lead, after the Brewers scored three times in the fourth to erase a 2-0 deficit.

Pirates starter Zach Duke (4-12) hasn’t won since June 9, losing a career-high eight straight decisions over 11 starts. The defense was just as putrid for Pittsburgh, which lost its 10th straight in Milwaukee.

In the fourth, the Pirates committed a pair of throwing errors that led to a two-run double by Corey Hart and a sacrifice fly by Bill Hall.

Pittsburgh opened its 2-0 lead on Ryan Doumit’s RBI groundout in the first and Duke’s two-out, RBI single in the second. But mixing a fastball with a deceptive offspeed pitch, Bush settled down and allowed only a long homer to Brandon Moss leading off the seventh.

Pittsburgh, well on its way to its 16th consecutive losing season, will be a major player in the postseason hopes of Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Louis. Including Friday night’s game, the Pirates play 14 of their final 35 games against the three divisional rivals.