MILWAUKEE -- March and April were mostly forgettable for the Brewers’ Opening Day starting pitcher and first baseman, but Jhoulys Chacín and Jesús Aguilar didn’t let the calendar flip to May without producing something to feel good about.

A 4-3 win over the Rockies on Tuesday night at Miller Park represented forward momentum for Chacin after he pitched six scoreless innings in his best start of 2019, and for Aguilar after he broke his home run drought by hitting another three-run home run, giving him three homers in the span of two promising games.

The Brewers enter the month of May with a 17-14 record. More than half of those games were against the Cardinals and Dodgers, owners of the National League’s top two records.

Offensively, Christian Yelich opened with a record-setting month, while Aguilar and Travis Shaw struggled to find their swings. Brewers starting pitchers have the worst ERA in the NL at 5.14, in part because their lead horse, Chacin, took the mound Tuesday with a 6.35 ERA. Closer Josh Hader ended the month allowing a home run for the fourth time in five outings, and Jeremy Jeffress is still working on his velocity. But Zach Davies is healthy again and among the league leaders with a 1.38 ERA, and Junior Guerra has pitched his way into the late-inning mix out of the bullpen.

So, it could have been a better opening month.

It also could have been worse.

“The way the National League looks, it's going to be a bunched-up season,” Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said. “If you look at the divisions right now, that's what we're going to get. We're 17-14. That's what we should be.

“The thing that I’m encouraged by is we're really starting to pitch better. That's the most important thing going forward. We're doing a much better job executing, and the games are taking a much better order.”

Chacin set the tone on Tuesday by engaging in an old fashioned pitchers’ duel, a good sign atop a Milwaukee rotation that has been so bogged down by underperformance that president of baseball operations David Stearns dipped into free agency last week to sign veteran Gio Gonzalez. The Brewers had been waiting for an outing from Chacin like the one he delivered on Tuesday -- six innings, two hits, no runs -- against a Rockies team that continues to struggle scoring runs at a ballpark that’s supposed to invite them.

Chacin walked three batters and only struck out one, but he induced so much soft contact -- Daniel Murphy’s opposite-field fly-ball double in the first inning and Raimel Tapia’s single in the second were Colorado’s only hits off him -- that he seemed in as much control as Colorado starter German Marquez, who retired the first 15 Brewers batters he faced without anything hit past the Rockies infielders before Colorado’s defense faltered in the sixth inning.

Chacin would have pitched deeper into the game, Counsell said, had the Brewers not created a scoring opportunity in the bottom of the sixth, when Ben Gamel’s double ticked off left fielder Tapia’s glove and Orlando Arcia reached on a bunt single with Rockies second baseman Ryan McMahon slow to cover first base. Chacin yielded to pinch-hitter Ryan Braun, who grounded into a double play but gave the Brewers a 1-0 lead.

“It's an outing that makes you feel better,” said Chacin, “like you helped your team from the get-go. Marquez had really good stuff, so I knew it was going to be a tough game offensively. …

“Definitely a big step. It was a good way to end April.”

Ditto for Aguilar, who provided some breathing room against Marquez in the seventh by hitting an 0-2 fastball for a three-run home run. That gave the Brewers a 4-0 lead, and proved the game’s pivotal swing when Colorado rallied for three runs in the ninth inning against Guerra and Hader. Before that, the Rockies had been limited to one unearned run in a span of 36 innings dating to last year’s NL Division Series.

Entering this week, Aguilar had no home runs and five RBIs in 2019. He has three home runs and seven RBIs in the past two nights, all with Yelich out of the lineup because of a stiff back. Yelich might not start until the Brewers’ weekend series against the Mets.

“It's obviously unfortunate not having a guy like Christian in the lineup, but we're a team and we try to pick each other up,” Aguilar said through translator Carlos Brizuela. “Right now, it's me, but the guys behind me and in front of me -- [Mike] Moustakas, Braun and Travis -- are going to step up at times, too. So you just keep rolling, keep trying to have good at-bats and pick each other up.”