Twins-Brewers Preview

Back-to-back productive offensive efforts have the Milwaukee Brewers in position to take their four-game home-and-home series with the Minnesota Twins.

The Brewers can do so with a third consecutive victory over their interleague rivals Thursday at Miller Park.

A day after four doubles helped Milwaukee (7-8) to a 6-5 win at Minnesota, it homered three times in Wednesday's 10-5 home victory.

''That is huge. That is definitely our offense's game there," Wednesday's winning pitcher Jimmy Nelson said. "They came out big.''

The Brewers failed to homer in their previous four contests before Chris Carter, Aaron Hill and Domingo Santana each went deep in the club's highest-scoring game of the young season.

"Everybody loves results," Hill told the Brewers' official website. "But when you know you're doing everything right, you're swinging at good pitches, everything is there - it's just a matter of getting the consistency going and getting to the right point.

"I've liked what's happened so far this year."

Nine of Carter's 12 hits have gone for extra bases. He's hit all but one of his four home runs at Miller Park, where he is batting .280 with eight of his 13 RBIs. Carter is hitting .238 on the road.

Perhaps a return home will help Taylor Jungmann (0-2, 9.00 ERA) after struggling in two straight road starts. The right-hander gave up eight runs in two-plus innings of a 10-1 loss at St. Louis on April 11, then yielded four over six of a 5-0 defeat at Pittsburgh on Saturday.

His teammates, however, failed to score a run with him on the mound in those outings.

Jungmann is 0-8 with a 9.39 ERA in his last nine road starts, but 4-0 with a 2.29 ERA in his last six at Miller Park.

This will be his first appearance against the Twins (4-11), who have dropped two straight since a four-game winning streak followed their 0-9 start. They haven't helped matters with five errors in four games.

"We know errors are part of the game, but you like to clean that up as best as you can," manager Paul Molitor told the Twins' official website.

The Brewer great will hand the ball to Ricky Nolasco (0-0, 3.21), who has allowed five total runs while lasting seven innings each in his first two outings. He gave up four of those runs in the second inning plus nine hits overall in Saturday's 6-4 victory over the Los Angeles Angels.

"He definitely found his breaking ball and used all his pitches," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said of the right-hander. "After the four runs, we didn't get many looks at him. ... He knows what he's doing."

Nolasco is 3-3 with a 7.20 ERA in nine starts against the Brewers, but last faced them in June 2014. Though it's been a while since Nolasco opposed Milwaukee, Jonathan Lucroy is 4 for 9 against him.

Lucroy, who had two RBIs on Wednesday, is batting .318 while hitting safely in the six home games he's played this season.

Minnesota's Miguel Sano has reached base in 10 consecutive contests and is 6 for 16 in the last four.

Teammate Oswaldo Arcia hit a two-run homer Wednesday. He's 8 for 20 with both of his home runs and all five RBIs in his last five contests.