MILWAUKEE -- Brewers manager Ned Yost is as "day-to-day" of a guy as they come, but he certainly remembered the beat-down delivered by the Astros earlier this month at Minute Maid Park.

"You don't forget stuff like that," Yost said Friday afternoon. "We didn't pitch well there. I remember going in and losing three straight, and I would like to return the favor here."

One game down, two to go.

This time, it was the Brewers playing home run derby, getting back-to-back solo shots from Mike Cameron and Ryan Braun in the first inning and a two-run drive from Prince Fielder in the fifth on the way to a 5-1 win over the visiting Astros at Miller Park.

And this time, the Brewers got a quality start, something they lacked in all three games in Houston. Manny Parra, battered for five earned runs and nine hits, including a pair of Astros home runs on May 3, worked six strong innings on Friday and allowed just one run and four hits in six innings of work for his second straight win.

Parra got the better of Astros starter Brandon Backe, who surrendered six hits, including all three Brewers home runs, in five innings. Back on May 3, Backe homered off Parra and took the win.

"Back then, I wasn't pitching with very much confidence," Parra said. "Sometimes I felt like I didn't belong. I guess maybe that's normal, but I didn't understand it because last year I had a lot of success. ... It was good to go out there and execute pitches and execute our game plan."

If Parra felt different in his rematch against the Astros, he apparently looked different, too.

"He didn't look like the same guy," Astros manager Cecil Cooper said. "He pitched well. He had command. You have command and you throw at 94 [mph], it's pretty tough to beat that."

Parra was upset about his four walks, but he nearly lost more than his command in the top of the first inning when Miguel Tejada hit a screaming line drive that struck Parra just below the left side of his rib cage.

He converted the out and stayed in the game.

"He about got killed," Yost said. "Tejada about sent a ball right through him. It hit so hard, I thought it hit leather. It sounded like it hit his glove. But I don't think it hit any leather. Being young and strong and [spending] a lot of time in the weight room, Manny weathered that real well."

The Astros scored their only run off Parra in the second inning, when Hunter Pence doubled with one out and advanced on a balk. He scored on a single by No. 8 hitter J.R. Towles, cutting Milwaukee's lead to 2-1.

The Brewers had an answer courtesy of Braun, who matched his career high with four hits, including his 14th home run. He also golfed a low pitch from Backe for an RBI single and a 3-1 lead in the third inning. Fielder padded the lead in the fifth with a two-out, two-strike, two-run home run, his seventh this season.

Parra was at only 87 pitches through six innings but also was facing his fourth run through a Houston lineup that entered the series hitting .298 against left-handed pitching, tops in the National League. With an opportunity to use a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the sixth, Yost took it.

"Manny had more pitches in him, we thought," Yost said. "But there's not sense in sending him around that lineup again for the fourth time. They had already seen him three times and he kept the game in check and it was time to go to somebody different."

Carlos Villanueva continued his smooth conversion to relief with two scoreless innings and Guillermo Mota worked around a hit in a 12-pitch ninth inning. Brewers relievers have a 1.40 ERA over the last eight games, including three scoreless innings on Friday.

"If we score five runs in every game, that's going to be good for us," Mota said. "Right now, we're pretty good in the bullpen."

The Brewers played their first full game under an open dome at Miller Park and the baseballs were flying. Cameron's home run sailed into the left-field bleachers, but both Braun's and Fielder's went to right field and landed in a group party area that sits on what used to be the warning track.

Braun's 4-for-4 performance came an hour or so after another visit with a doctor for answers about his lingering inner-ear infection. Braun said he was having trouble hearing out of his right ear, and complained of dizziness and fatigue.

"I think it was working for me," Braun said. "For me, a lot of times if I have a small injury or I'm a little sick, it helps me relax. When I feel too good I try to do too much sometimes."

The manager was not exactly buying all of Braun's symptoms.

"He can hear," Yost said with a hint of a grin. "He heard everybody cheering every time he got a hit. Believe me."