A day after Fielder was nearly hit in the head with what Brewers manager Ned Yost called a "fishy" high and tight pitch from Pirates reliever Matt Capps, the Brewers first baseman homered twice in the early innings and then scored the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth as Milwaukee got away with a 6-4 win at Miller Park on Sunday in the finale of a four-game series.

Bill Hall did not start the game for the Brewers, but he helped finish it, delivering a go-ahead, two-strike single in the middle of a two-run rally. The man on the mound for the Pirates just happened to be Capps.

"That's about as good of payback as you can get," Hall said. "Get a guy back in the game with the game on the line and beat him. I think that Prince let him know a little bit that he was excited about beating him."

He sure did. After eluding catcher Ryan Doumit's tag, Fielder popped up and screamed something at Capps that is not fit to print on a family Web site. He was quickly ushered toward the Brewers dugout by plate umpire Tim Timmons and on-deck hitter Tony Gwynn, Jr., who later drove home Hall with an RBI single.

"I just like to play hard, and I like winning," said Fielder, who finished 3-for-4 with three runs scored and three RBIs.

"That's just his passion," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "He loves to play the game. He loves to compete."

Even Pirates manager Jim Tracy conceded that Fielder was right to be upset after Saturday night, when he had to use his right elbow to deflect a Capps pitch headed for his face, two pitches after J.J. Hardy had slugged a three-run home run that essentially put the game out of reach.

Capps said only that he "heard some things." Doumit wasn't happy about Fielder's outburst.

"I thought it was pretty bush league what he did afterwards," Doumit said. "There's no need for that, Especially after what he said in the paper yesterday, that, 'We don't need to brawl ... J.J. took care of everything.' To do something like that is bush league in my opinion."

Carlos Villanueva (3-0) got the win and Francisco Cordero his 12th save as the Brewers won three of four games in the series and finished a 22-game stretch against divisional opponents with a 16-6 mark. At 21-10 overall, they own the best record in Major League Baseball.

It was a game the Brewers easily could have lost. Outside of Fielder, the Brewers were not very good offensively, going 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position before Hall's hit. They stranded Gwynn after a leadoff triple in the third inning, and in the fourth, after Fielder's second home run of the game made it 3-0, the Brewers loaded the bases with one out but came away with only one more run.

Brewers pitchers struggled in the seventh. Starter Ben Sheets held Pittsburgh scoreless through the first six innings but then walked Jose Bautista leading off the seventh. Two batters later, he surrendered a two-run homer to Chris Duffy, who had been in an 0-for-17 slump.

Relievers Matt Wise and Brian Shouse could not stop the rally. Wise was charged with two runs after the Pirates collected back-to-back RBI hits off Brewers lefty specialist Shouse, who had stranded all 20 of his inherited baserunners entering the game.

With the score tied at 4, Fielder led off the bottom of the eighth with a single against Pittsburgh lefty John Grabow (0-1) and moved to second on a Johnny Estrada sacrifice bunt -- a play Yost called the key to the rally. But Fielder remained at second as Capps retired pinch-hitter Tony Graffanino.

That brought to the plate Hall, who whiffed on two hittable fastballs but then lined another for a single to center fielder Jason Bay, who started the game in left and "does not have the strongest arm in the league," according to Hall.

"Prince made a great slide," Hall said. "It was a lot closer play than I thought it was going to be."

Said Yost: "I got a little nervous for the catcher for a second because I wasn't sure if [Fielder] was going to slide. I was glad when he decided to."

Fielder jumped up and said something in the direction of Capps, though Fielder didn't want to talk about it.

"That's how I am most of the time," he said coyly. "I get pumped up."

Did he really expect anyone to believe he did not say anything to Capps?

"I didn't," Fielder said. "Did you guys hear anything?"

You didn't have to, if you could read Fielder's lips on the television replay.

"He said, 'We're really excited. We're winning this ballgame,'" Hall joked. "I could not [hear him] because the crowd was too loud, but I could see his lips moving as well. He was really excited about it. That's all I know."

Sheets was charged with two runs on six hits in 6 1/3 innings and was upset after Yost pulled him with one out in the seventh.

"What's the chance of me giving up four runs right there?" Sheets asked. "To me, it's not that good. I don't make those calls, you know. I wasn't mad by any means, but I don't think I give up four runs and I get us to the eighth inning, which is what you look for as a starter."

Strikeouts continued to be hard to come by for Sheets, who set a franchise record with 264 strikeouts in 2004, his last full, healthy season, and averaged 9.85 strikeouts per nine innings last year. He set a season high on Sunday with five strikeouts, but in 42 1/3 innings this season he has fanned only 21, and he continues to struggle a bit with his curveball.

"He's getting really close," Yost said. "He had his good fastball from the first pitch on, and you can see that his curveball is starting to get there a little bit."