Eric Thames homered in the bottom of the eighth inning to lift the Milwaukee Brewers to a 2-1 win against the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates and take the rubber game of their three-game series on Sunday afternoon.

Thames, who homered and tripled in a 3-1 win against the Pirates on Saturday night, led off the eighth by hitting an 0-1 fastball from Kyle Crick (3-4) deep over the fence in center for Milwaukee's first lead.

Brewers pitcher Zach Davies drove in the other run while improving over his past two outings on the mound. The right-hander allowed one run and six hits in 5 1/3 innings, striking out two and walking two.

Jeremy Jeffress (2-2) pitched the eighth inning, and Matt Albers worked the ninth for his first save.

Christian Yelich collected his 1,000th career hit for the Brewers, who went 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position.

Pittsburgh starter Steven Brault went 4 2/3 innings, allowing one run and five hits. The left-hander struck out five and walked three.

Starling Marte had three hits for Pittsburgh.

The Brewers tied the score at 1 with a run in the fourth inning.

Mike Moustakas led off with a double to deep center before Brault struck out back-to-back batters. The Pirates intentionally walked Manny Pina to get to Davies, but he came through with a base hit to right-center field and Moustakas scored when the ball got away from catcher Elias Diaz as he tried to make the swipe tag, resulting in an error.

Davies gave up his only run after getting the first two outs in the first inning.

Marte singled to center and Josh Bell walked. Melky Cabrera then slammed a double to right center, driving in Marte for a 1-0 lead.

Brault faced his first difficulty in the second inning when Keston Hiura reached on an infield single and Jesus Aguilar walked, putting runners on first and second with no outs. Both runners moved up on a groundout, but Hiura was picked off at third by Diaz before getting tagged out in a rundown. Davies then struck out to end the inning.

--Field Level Media