They kept making contact. They didn’t break down after a rare blown lead from the bullpen. And when the automatic runner arrived in extra innings, they capitalized.

A Brewers club that’s struggled to get on track in the early portion of this shortened 2020 schedule has suddenly shown a lot of life and a lot of fight the last two days at Wrigley Field. And that earned them another nip-and-tuck win over the Cubs on Saturday afternoon -- this time by a 6-5 count in 10 innings, with an Avisaíl García leadoff RBI double and a Luis Urías RBI single making the extra inning extra special.

• Box score

This marks just the second time this season that Milwaukee has won back-to-back games. Both of the back-to-back wins happened in Chicago. But doing it this time on the North Side -- against a Cubs team with the best record in baseball -- sweetened the achievement.

“In a shortened season, every win is of the utmost importance and significance,” said right fielder Ryan Braun, who had a two-double day. “Especially the ones that look unlikely.”

This win looked unlikely when Adrian Houser got off to a shaky start that put Milwaukee in a 3-0 hole. And perhaps again when Corey Knebel served up a game-tying solo shot to Steven Souza Jr. in the bottom of the eighth.

For the second day in a row, though, the Brewers played a game more representative of the effort we’ve seen from them the last few seasons.

“They just, they always compete,” Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “They’re a really good team. They’re a good team now, and the best player on the planet [Christian Yelich] is going through a little bit of a grind.”

With his mind freed by a fortuitous bubble-gum find before a big homer, Yelich was the hero Friday.

No such gum Saturday, but the Brewers still gave us plenty to chew on.

Because Houser quickly righted himself, because Brent Suter delivered 2 2/3 strong innings of relief, because David Phelps kept the dangerous Cubs offense at bay in the ninth and because Alex Claudio came through with his first save since April 14, 2018, in the 10th, the Brewers’ pitching always had them in a position to win this game.

But the difference-maker was the Brewers’ lineup, which entered the day with the lowest contact rate (70.6%) and the highest strikeout rate (28.2%) in MLB, continually putting the ball in play.

In the fourth, a soft single from Yelich and a ground-ball single from García put runners on the corners against Colin Rea. Justin Smoak’s well-struck double scored both runners to pull the Brewers within a run. Later, Urías’ single that nicked off shortstop Javier Báez’s glove scored Smoak to tie it up.

“I think we’ve got a couple guys that are really starting to come out of it,” manager Craig Counsell said. “I’d put Justin Smoak in the same category as Avi, where the at-bats are just different looking.”

More proof that contact is king arrived in the sixth, when Orlando Arcia reached on a Jason Kipnis fielding error at second to score Braun and give the Brewers the 4-3 lead.

Though that lead did not prove safe in the right hand of Knebel, who has a 7.50 ERA through the first six innings of his return from Tommy John surgery, his was a rare misstep by the bullpen. Even on a day in which Josh Hader, who had his first multi-inning save of the season Friday, was not available, the Brewers got five innings’ worth of key outs.

The Brewers went to extras for the second time this season. And as was the case in their first exposure to the new automatic runner rule against the Pirates last month, they were victorious.

Yelich was at second when García led off against Jeremy Jeffress, who to that point had not allowed so much as a hit in seven innings this season.

“I was looking for a pitch away,” García said. “I was thinking, ‘Hit the ball to the opposite field.’”

He did just that, smacking a 1-0 splitter to the right-field corner to bring the go-ahead run home. And after García moved to third on an Eric Sogard single, valuable insurance arrived when Urías’ ground ball to the left-hand side was too deep for Báez to make a play.

The Cubs did move their automatic runner home on the first two outs of the bottom of the 10th, but Claudio got David Bote swinging for strike three to end a tense -- but fun -- win that had the Brewers feeling frisky.

“I guess what I love about these wins is they are very much team wins,” Counsell said. “The Cubs are a team that’s played really well to start the season. ... To come down here and give ourselves a chance to take three of four from them, we’ve done well, we’ve done our jobs.”