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Cubs magic number is 6 after rallying to beat Brewers

MILWAUKEE - There were two big story lines heading into Thursday night's Cubs-Brewers game at Miller Park: Jake Arrieta's return to the Cubs' pitching rotation and the race in the National League Central.

Arrieta gave the Cubs what they needed in his first game since he left his Labor Day start in Pittsburgh with a hamstring injury. He worked 5 innings against the Brewers, giving up 5 hits and 1 run. And the Cubs scored the ultimate victory, winning the game 5-3 in 10 innings.

Kris Bryant hit a 2-run homer off Oliver Drake to break a 3-3 tie.

The Brewers fans in the crowd of 35,114 at Miller Park got up to leave as Bryant rounded the bases, and the Cubs-fan majority cheered as their team reduced its magic number to 6 for winning the National League Central.

The Cubs (85-67) increased their lead in the NL Central to 4½ games over the Brewers (81-72). A four-game sweep this weekend by the Cubs will clinch the division.

The teams went back and forth against each other's bullpens. The Brewers tied the game at 2-2 with a run in the seventh inning and went ahead in the eighth on a go-ahead single by Eric Thames of Justin Wilson. Javier Baez tied it for the Cubs in the top of the ninth with an RBI single.

"Just an incredible baseball game, what I'm sure you guys felt like was a playoff game, just like we did," Arrieta said. "Two teams battling for a division. Four-game series. This is a really awesome time to be in an organization like this and in a division like the NL Central where there's a couple teams that have playoff aspirations on the line.

"If we take care of business here over the next few days, we get a couple steps closer."

Arrieta wound up throwing 71 pitches, and the velocity on the fastball was good, especially early. He gave up a fourth-inning home run to Domingo Santana. Kyle Schwarber had given the Cubs a 1-0 lead the second with a home run to left-center off Brewers starter Zach Davies. Anthony Rizzo singled a run home in the third.

Davies gave it a game effort on a night when the Brewers' bullpen was in need of a rest He worked 7 innings, giving up 7 hits.

"That was a pretty special game," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "Javy's been there before, the hit in San Francisco (in last year's division series). Almost the same hit up the middle that he had in the playoff game. We had so many opportunities to do better, but so did they. Both teams really wanted to win that game tonight."

Bryant's homer was his 28th of the season.

"It'd be so nice to see him get toasty right now," Maddon said.

The Cubs got good work overall out of their bullpen, with closer Wade Davis working 1⅔ and pitching out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth, when the Brewers had two chances to win the game. Davis wound up with 4 strikeouts as he improved to 4-1 with a 1.95 ERA.

"That was a lot to lay on him today, but when you come from behind like that and you have a chance to win that game, to lose that game with him still out there just playing catch in the bullpen would have been wrong on my part," Maddon said. "We needed to get him in there."

The weekend is far from over, and the Cubs know they're in for a fight.

"It's different from last year," Bryant said. "This time last year, we knew we were in. I don't want to say it didn't matter, but we were just kind of on cruise control. Now we've got to win these games, and it's really kind of showing us what we're made of. That's a good thing."

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