MILWAUKEE -- Strike 3 was called Ball 4. In the moment, Freddy Peralta was sure of it.

Such things happen from time to time, and it’s a pitcher’s job to work around it. Peralta, his pitch count climbing on Friday in the opening game of a long homestand, was unable to do so, and it led to a go-ahead rally for the Red Sox and a 5-3 Brewers loss at American Family Field.

Rowdy Tellez lined a home run for the Brewers, and William Contreras showed catchers can be cat-like, too, with a deft slide home during a go-ahead fourth inning. But the Red Sox came back against Peralta and Hoby Milner in the decisive sixth to snap Milwaukee’s four-game winning streak.

It turned on a single slider.

“After that,” Contreras said, “everything changed.”

Brewers hitters shared their views of home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez’s strike zone for much of the night, especially after the game turned against Peralta in the sixth. Working with a 3-2 lead against Boston’s Kiké Hernández with two outs and Peralta’s pitch count creeping over 90, Peralta spun a slider to the high inside corner of the strike zone. Marquez called it a ball. It was Peralta’s first walk of the night.

A two-out walk is not ideal, but Peralta was still pumping 96-97 mph fastballs with a chance to escape. But he walked the ensuing hitter, Triston Casas, too.

At 99 pitches, Peralta yielded to Milner, who surrendered successive RBI singles for a 4-3 Red Sox lead. Pinch-hitter Rob Refsnyder tied the game before the go-ahead hit from Jarren Duran was a line drive to the left of utility man Owen Miller -- making his first start of the season at third base as the Brewers adjust to a long stretch without Garrett Mitchell among their lineup options -- which struck the inside of the glove of a diving Miller but popped out.

“They did a nice job that inning,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “We got two quick outs and they worked two good at-bats to get two walks on him. We went to the bullpen and they did a nice job against Hoby.

“They put together a good inning to get those two runs there and grab the lead. Credit to them for doing that. There’s going to be close pitches that don’t go your way.”

Two things revealed that in the moment when Peralta was hot about the close call. One, he took a little hop like he was about to head back to the dugout, inning over. Then, he threw his hardest pitch of the night -- 97.1 mph -- during the ensuing matchup with Casas.

“Did you see it?” Peralta asked the assembled media about the close pitch to Hernández. “It was in the square?”

He continued, “If it was a strike, it made a difference, because I could get out of the inning. I thought it was a strike in the moment, but he said no. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

It was that kind of night. An inning later, when reliever Bryse Wilson issued a two-out walk to Justin Turner, the Red Sox cashed in again with Masataka Yoshida’s RBI double. After that, Boston’s Josh Winckowski and Kenley Jansen delivered nasty relief to shut down any hope of a Brewers comeback.

“We like to move the line; that's the most important thing,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “We got a matchup that we liked there with [Refsnyder] against a lefty. They had to go to him early, so it protected the big guys from him, and Ref put an outstanding at-bat. But everything started with the walk. … That's part of the offense: grind at-bats and create traffic, and then hopefully good things happen.”

Peralta dropped to 2-2 and saw his ERA, which stood at 0.75 after his first two starts of the regular season following a promising spring, climb to 3.97 through four starts, each lasting at least five innings. He was charged with four earned runs on five hits in 5 2/3 innings on Friday.

“I feel great, and that’s the most important thing for me,” Peralta said. “But we want to win, too. The last two games I haven’t been able to put the team in a position to win the game. Today was close, but things happen. Little things happened in the game. Nothing that I can change. It happened already.”