MILWAUKEE -- Ben Sheets saw Doug Davis pitch himself into and out of enough trouble during their three-plus seasons together with the Milwaukee Brewers that he wasn't surprised when Davis beat thyroid cancer and returned to the mound for the Arizona Diamondbacks two weeks ago.

"The bases were loaded and he got out of it again," Sheets, the Brewers' ace, said with a laugh. "That's what he does. He tends to keep them off the scoreboard."

He's made a career of it. More importantly, he's still making a career of it.

Davis started a minor league game exactly one month after his April 10 surgery for thyroid cancer and made his third major league start since his return in the Diamondbacks' 4-3 loss to the Brewers Monday at Miller Park. But he scored his biggest victory ever when he was given a clean bill of health.

His quick recovery and the recent no-hitter thrown by another cancer survivor, Boston's Jon Lester, gave baseball two of the feel-good stories of the year. Davis and Lester are highly visible profiles in courage who should give hope to cancer patients that they can not only survive but thrive after the dreaded disease invades their lives.

Davis is uniquely qualified to deliver such inspiration. He spends most of his time working out of jams due to his penchant for pitching from behind and walking batters. But, as Sheets said, he has the toughness to bear down and get himself out of an inning more often than not.

To the 32-year-old Davis, cancer was just another jam he had to escape.

"Everybody was shocked the first time they heard potentially what was going on with him and what he was going to have to deal with," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said.

"The doctors were saying he potentially could come back at the rate that he did, but based on what we were dealing with, I thought it was quite a long shot. True to form for Doug, he came back pretty much on the same schedule that they were talking about."

Davis, who started two games after he was diagnosed but before the surgery, made his first post-surgery start a good one, winning at Atlanta with seven innings of five-hit ball. However, he was roughed up for six runs in five innings in his first home start, a loss to San Francisco.

Melvin said both games were emotional for Davis. A start at Miller Park, his former home, figured to be just as emotional, though Davis wouldn't admit it afterward.

"He really doesn't want it to be a distraction for anybody," Melvin said. "He just wants it to go away and get back into his routine and pitch. We've had some emotional games ... but he makes it easy on everybody here."

The people in his former clubhouse knew he wouldn't make it easy on them. Davis compiled a 37-36 record for Milwaukee from late in the 2003 season until he was traded to Arizona after the 2006 season.

"Whatever he went through six weeks ago is going to be the last thing on his mind when he steps on that mound," Brewers manager Ned Yost said before the game. "He's a warrior and a competitor. He battles you when you get out there. He's not out there in the woe-is-me, feel-sorry-for-me mode. He's out there to stick it to you."

Davis ran true to form Monday, taking a 3-1 lead into the seventh before Arizona's defense fell apart. His trademark cutter was working all night and, except for the fact that he doesn't need as much sleep, Davis said nothing has changed.

"I felt normal,'' he said. "I felt just as good as I ever have.''

Davis ended with a no-decision and left to an appreciative ovation.

"You look at something like (cancer) and you know what type of person he is and you know that's not going to slow Doug Davis down for long," Yost said. "We can say, 'Oh, it's so nice to see Doug back out there with the battle that he's been through,' but there was no doubt in anybody 's mind that he wouldn't be back out there at the top of his game."

Davis has always been a survivor as a pitcher. Now, he's a survivor as a person, too.