Fielder’s 44th homer, Gallardo’s strong arm lead Brewers victory

Milwaukee won, 6-1, at PNC Park.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Prince Fielder hit his 44th home run and Corey Hart also connected to support Yovani Gallardo’s six shutout innings, helping the Brewers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-1 Tuesday night for one of their infrequent victories in PNC Park.

Ryan Braun drove in three runs as the Brewers ended a four-game losing streak in Pittsburgh.

The Brewers are 8-1 at home against Pittsburgh, but they had lost 13 of 17 and 41 of 60 in PNC Park — easily the worst record of any opposing team.

Gallardo (8-4) checked the Pirates on six singles while winning his third in a row and fourth in five decisions. He has permitted the Pirates only one run in 13 innings over two starts the last two weeks, beating them 3-2 on Aug. 31.

Brewers go deep

A night after failing to advance a runner past second base in a 9-0 loss to the Pirates, the Brewers again turned to the home run to win their ninth in 13 games.

The solo drives by Fielder, who leads the NL, and Hart were Milwaukee’s 202nd and 203rd, the most in the majors. The Reds are the only other team to reach even the 190-homer mark.

Here’s how important the long ball is to the Brewers: Of their 144 games, they’ve won only eight when they didn’t homer. When they homer at least once, they are 17 games above .500 at 66-49.

Milwaukee hit line drive after line drive for the first three innings against former No. 1 draft pick Bryan Bullington in his second career start, but didn’t score after twice hitting into double plays.

Bullington chased

Fielder’s drive deep into the right-field seats with one out in the fourth finally got them going, and the Brewers chased Bullington (0-2) on Gabe Gross’ RBI double and Bryan’s run-scoring single in the sixth.

Hart’s 21st homer came a batter after Bullington was replaced by left-hander John Grabow.

Bullington’s pitching line wasn’t great — five-plus innings, seven hits, three runs — but it was a big improvement over his 16-4 loss Thursday to St. Louis in which he yielded seven runs and seven hits in three innings.

But the Brewers’ five line-drive outs while he was in the game showed he wasn’t fooling many batters.

Gallardo was much better, walking three but striking out seven.

The Pirates advanced a runner as far as third only once against him, loading the bases in the fourth before Ronny Paulino grounded into a double play.