Brewers complete four-game sweep of Cardinals

MILWAUKEE -- A change in managers has done wonders for the Milwaukee Brewers.

Jose Hernandez homered and drove in two runs as Milwaukee won its fourth straight since Jerry Royster replaced Davey Lopes as Brewers manager with a 5-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.

The Brewers, 3-12 when Lopes was fired, swept a four-game series for just the second time since joining the National League in 1998. The Brewers swept a four-game series at Florida in April that season.

"To be honest, Davey said it best," Royster said. "He said eventually you know we're going to hit. We're going to hit. And, if we don't hit, he said, we're not going to look very good. And we don't. It looked like our team was down and out because we weren't hitting. Now all of a sudden you get a couple of hits and guys are on base and we're stealing bases ... it's fun now. You can't do any of those things with two hits in six innings and we were doing that a lot."

Nick Neugebauer (1-2) survived a two-run first inning that included three walks.

He allowed two runs, five hits, struck out one and walked six in five innings. Mike DeJean pitched the ninth to earn his third save of the series, and fourth in five chances.

"On paper, I don't think I had a good day, but it was a good day for me because I know I didn't have my best stuff," Neugebauer said. "But I went out there and still was able to win."

Bud Smith (0-2), who also walked three in a two-run first, allowed four runs on six hits in four innings.

Hernandez led off the fourth with his third homer to break a tie and Milwaukee on top 3-2. Eric Young manufactured another run by bunting for a two-out basehit, stealing second and scoring on Ronnie Belliard's single to center.

"It was a situation where Bud had been around the plate those four or five pitches I fouled out," Young said. "I thought he was going to come after me."

St. Louis cut the lead to 4-3 in the seventh with a run off Mike Buddie. Fernando Vina doubled, advanced on Kerry Robinson's sacrifice and scored on an RBI groundout by pinch-hitter Placido Polanco.

Hernandez's sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning made it 5-3.

Edgar Renteria's bases-loaded single gave St. Louis a 2-0 lead in the first, although the Cardinals squandered chances for a bigger inning. Vina was thrown out stealing after a leadoff single and the Cardinals left the bases loaded.

"We had about three places where we needed to do more and we didn't do it," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa said.

Milwaukee answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning on Jeffrey Hammonds' RBI single and Geoff Jenkins' sacrifice fly.

Notes: The first inning took 37 minutes as each starter walked three and combined for 69 pitches. ... The crowd of 24,592 included a walk-up of 4,840, a Miller Park record. ... The four-game sweep was Milwaukee's first at home since July 28-29, 1997, when it won back-to-back doubleheaders against Toronto. ... The Cardinals were swept in a four-game series for the first time since Sept. 24-27, 1999 at Cincinnati. ... St. Louis fell to 1-6 on its 13-game trip.