NEW YORK -- Friday night’s 8-2 win over the Yankees began the home stretch of the Brewers’ regular season, which concludes with 23 games over 24 days. It will be a push for the finish line, but not a sprint, Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell says. There are too many games in too few days to be a sprint.

Instead, Counsell and the Brewers will need contributions from throughout the roster to mix in enough rest to make the postseason, then play deep into it, with fresh arms and live bats.

“It’s that little lens of trying to get through seven weeks of baseball,” Counsell said. 

And in that sense, Friday at Yankee Stadium marked an excellent start.

• Games remaining: at NYY (2), vs. MIA (4), vs. WAS (3), at STL (4), at MIA (3), vs. STL (3), vs. CHC (3)
• Standings update: The Brewers (78-62) hold a three-game lead in the National League Central on the Cubs (76-66), who lost at home to the D-backs on Friday. Milwaukee is the third-best division leader, meaning it would host a best-of-three NL Wild Card Series against the final Wild Card entrant starting on Oct. 3.
• Magic number: The Brewers' magic number over the Cubs is 19 to clinch the NL Central.

Willy Adames homered for the third time in seven games and finished with three RBIs. Third baseman Andruw Monasterio -- his job security shaky with the Brewers’ Aug. 31 addition of Josh Donaldson on a Minor League deal -- delivered the hit that sparked a tiebreaking three-run rally in the top of the seventh inning and the defensive gem that helped keep the Yankees off the scoreboard in the bottom half, then doubled home two runs in the eighth. Every batter in the starting lineup had a hit, including five with multiple hits.

On the pitching side, rookie Abner Uribe stared down Aaron Judge and won with a swinging strikeout to end the fifth, then added a scoreless sixth en route to his first Major League win before Trevor Megill pitched a scoreless seventh. When the Brewers followed their three-run seventh inning with a three-run eighth, turning a 2-2 tie into an 8-2 lead, Counsell could rest the remainder of his high-leverage relievers.

That’s always important for the next game and the game after that.

Now, considering the densely-packed schedule and the late stage of the season, it is especially so.

“You’re still going to have to make choices with the game the next day [in mind],” Counsell said. “And then you also have to understand if your big goal involves October, you have to keep players healthy and productive through the month of October, which means there's a significant number of games left.

“All those things factor in, and it's decisions that we've had in the past, for sure. There's always a balance to it and there's always a choice to make. The choice has consequences. So you just have to make the best choices on a daily basis -- but it involves rest. It just has to, at this point.”

Base hits help make decisions easier, and with 10 over the final three innings, the Brewers matched their season high with 16 in the game. That late flurry allowed Counsell to rest the trio of relievers -- Elvis Peguero, Joel Payamps and Devin Williams -- who have most often covered the end of close games with a lead.

“Some of the rest is going to be crucial, right?” said Brewers catcher William Contreras, who tallied two hits, including a tiebreaking single off tough Yankees reliever Jonathan Loáisiga in the decisive seventh -- Counsell’s favorite at-bat of the game. “To be able to put a lot of runs on the board and give some guys some rest, some days they’re going to take care of us as well.”

That group has been growing with the emergence of Uribe, who fired seven more pitches north of 100 mph while lowering his ERA to 1.59, and Megill, who logged his second hold.

“The confidence had been given to me by them; they’ve thrown me in all those different situations,” Uribe said. “I try to take as much advantage as I can, throw strikes, attack the hitters and get the outs. That way they can continue to give me those opportunities.”

With a healthy lead, Counsell was able to pitch Thyago Vieira in the ninth for his Brewers debut and his first Major League appearance since June 2019. Vieira responded with a 1-2-3 inning, capped by a strikeout.

“We did a nice job of just creating opportunities tonight, and finally we broke through,” Counsell said. “I thought William’s at-bat -- that’s a tough at-bat for a right-hander, to hang in there and get a pitch to put in play. That’s, to me, the at-bat of the game.”