MILWAUKEE -- J.J. Hardy knows you have to give a little to get a little, so when he lined out hard to left field in his fourth at-bat Friday afternoon and then dribbled an infield hit in his fifth and final at-bat, the trade-off was complete.

"That made up for it," Hardy said.

But Hardy hasn't had to do a lot of trading lately, not as he rides the momentum of what now is a 16-game hitting streak. That infield dribbler was the last of his four hits on a sun-splashed day when he had four hits for the second straight game.

The big difference is those hits -- three singles and a two-run homer -- came in a 9-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates before a sellout audience of 41,463 at Miller Park, not in a 6-5 loss at Arizona where the Diamondbacks scored all their runs in their last at-bat.

"Games like that are so fluke-ish," manager Ned Yost said of Thursday's loss, "that all you can do is forget it."

What Hardy is doing now borders on the unforgettable. He extended his major league-leading hitting streak with a single to left in the first and followed with a single to right in the third. His two-run homer in the fifth off Tom Gorzelanny (6-7) made it 5-1.

It was Hardy's sixth home run in 16 games, a streak that began, not coincidentally, after taking a five-day hiatus to rest an ailing left shoulder.

"They're just kind of falling in for me," said Hardy, who put together a 19-game hitting streak last season. "This is definitely up at the top, one of my hottest streaks ever."

Hardy is hitting .448 in the streak and has raised his overall average to .292, 50 points higher than it was when the string began.

"We try to get as close to him as possible so it rubs off on all of us," third baseman Bill Hall said. "He's hitting everything on the screws. Even his outs are hit hard, so he deserves some of those infield hits. He's red hot. It's fun to watch. Everything he swings at, he's hitting on the barrel. He's doing a lot of damage."

If hitting is contagious, then maybe even Hall is catching the disease. He finished a triple shy of the cycle with three RBIs, two coming in the second when he knocked his 11th home run of the season to give the Brewers a 2-0 lead.

All that offensive production was a pleasant addition to Ben Sheets' very workmanlike effort. Sheets struggled early and often, lasting just 5.2 innings. He went 0-2 on five hitters, only to see the count go full. But despite allowing eight hits and walking three, Sheets allowed just one run on Xavier Nady's third-inning double.

It certainly could have been worse. Sheets stranded 10 Pirates, eight of whom were in scoring position. The biggest inning was the fifth after the Brewers had taken a 3-1 lead on Jason Kendall's run-scoring single. The Pirates put runners at second and third with one out but Sheets retired Nady on a pop up to Hardy and caught Adam LaRoche looking for the final out.

"That's what you can expect from Sheets," Hardy said. "Even when he's not at his best, he gives you a chance to win."

Said Sheets: "It was a rough day but it wasn't a bad outing. We didn't let many score."