MILWAUKEE — Their starting pitchers have been so good, the Padres used two of them Sunday.
They also got a rare big inning on offense, overcame a late lost lead and beat the Brewers 6-4 in 10 innings Sunday afternoon at American Family Field.
Jake Cronenworth's second home run in two days was a big one — a three-run blast in the 10th inning off Trevor Gott. Taylor Rogers allowed a run in the 10th but completed his 18th save, which tied him with Milwaukee's Josh Hader for the major league lead.
The Padres' third straight victory, coming after a season-high four-game losing streak, gave them the season series win over the National League Central leaders.
With the season exactly one-third over, the Padres are 33-21, owners of the major leagues' fifth-best record. They return home to host three games against the NL East-leading Mets.
Officially, Padres starting pitchers allowed two runs in 23 innings during the four games here.
That included the run the Brewers scored in the fifth inning Thursday against Sean Manaea and Kolten Wong's leadoff homer Sunday against Mike Clevinger. It did not include the two-run, game-tying homer Wong hit off Nick Martinez in Sunday's eighth inning, as he had come out of the bullpen at the start of the fourth inning to relieve Clevinger.
Between the Brewers' runs in the first and final games, Joe Musgrove had a no-hitter going for 7 2/3 innings and finished with eight scoreless innings Friday and MacKenzie Gore threw six scoreless innings Saturday.
The Padres had gotten at least six innings from their starting pitcher in 10 consecutive games, the club's longest streak since 2011.
An 11th straight game was highly unlikely, as Clevinger had not pitched in a game since May 17 and was coming off a 15-day stay on the IL with a right triceps strain.
The suspense of whether the Padres would throw a third consecutive shutout was put to rest two pitches into Clevinger's day when Wong turned a sinker down and in and sent it a projected 390 feet over the wall in right field.
Clevinger took 60 pitches to get through his three innings but did not allow another hit.
Martinez, who began the season in the rotation and had started twice in Clevinger's absence, allowed a single to the first batter he faced before retiring 13 of the next 14 batters to get through the seventh inning.
Especially since it was against the Brewers, whose 33-23 record is sixth best in the majors, this was arguably the Padres' finest series.
They were one Rogers meltdown from a sweep. They led the Brewers 4-1 going into the ninth inning Thursday before Rogers allowed four runs.
And it wasn't like the Padres were facing middling starting pitchers.
The Brewers starters in this series had a combined 2.63 ERA before facing the Padres, who scored 21 runs in the series and 13 against starting pitchers.
Facing left-hander Eric Lauer, who pitched for them in 2018 and '19, the Padres went down quickly in the first, squandered opportunities in the next three innings and took a 3-1 lead in the fifth.
It was the 20th time the Padres scored three or more runs in an inning, something they have done less frequently than all but three teams this season.
They did it without a home run, but the inning did begin with a double Trent Grisham bounced over the wall near the right-field foul pole.
That was the Padres' 13th extra-base hit of the series — after they had just 12 in the previous eight games. It was Grisham's third double of the series and sixth extra-base hit in 13 games — after he had just eight extra-base hits in his first 39 games.
Grisham almost ran into the inning's first out. It seemed he would get caught between second and third on a grounder to the right side by José Azocar that first baseman Rowdy Tellez fielded up on the grass and threw behind Grisham to shortstop Pablo Reyes. But Reyes had the ball slip out of his hand as he went to throw.
That left runners at the corners, and Grisham scored when Jurickson Profar blooped a single into shallow right. Cronenworth followed with a single through the right side that scored Azocar. Luke Voit's groundout to third scored Profar, who had advanced two bases on Cronenworth's single.
