MILWAUKEE — Ben Brown simply keeps delivering exactly what the Cubs need.

On Tuesday night in Milwaukee, the Cubs needed a gem and Brown responded with far and away the best outing of his young career.

As the Cubs work to get their slumping offense back on track, they finally notched an early lead when Michael Busch led off the 3rd inning with a solo homer. It was the Cubs’ first lead in the 3rd inning or earlier since May 15 — a span of nearly 2 weeks.

With the slimmest of margins, Brown made it hold up…until the Brewers bounced back in the bottom of the 9th. After a wild sequence of events, the Brewers were down to their final strike but scratched across a run off Cubs closer Héctor Neris to send it to extra innings.

In the 10th, Mike Tauchman singled off Brewers pitcher Trevor Megill, bringing Luis Vázquez — the free runner — around to score. Seiya Suzuki followed with a single before Cody Bellinger drove home another run with an RBI hit and then Ian Happ delivered the big blow with a 2-run double.

Busch added more insurance with an RBI single to cap off a 5-run inning.

In the end, the Cubs wound up with a 6-3 victory, snapping their longest losing streak of the season (5 games).

It was an encouraging offensive outburst for a team that had been struggling to score of late. The Cubs had more hits (5) in the 10th inning than they had in the previous 9 innings combined (4). 

“It’s nice to break through and get some runs across the board and just come up with some big hits as a team,” Bellinger said. “A really good team win tonight.”

Brown — who was reinserted back into the Cubs rotation to take Kyle Hendricks’ spot — was spectacular, tossing 7 no-hit innings. He walked only 2 batters and struck out 10 while tossing 93 pitches.

The innings, strikeouts and pitch count were all career highs for the 24-year-old rookie.

Since at least 1901, Brown became only the 3rd Cubs pitcher with at least 7 innings, 10 strikeouts and 0 hits allowed in a start. Jake Arrieta (Aug. 30, 2015) and Carlos Zambrano (Sept. 14, 2008) are the only other pitchers to turn the trick in franchise history.

“I thought the fastball was like an angry fastball,” Craig Counsell said of Brown’s outing. “I mean, it was just really good and it was overpowering for much of the game. He threw a ton of strikes and the fastball was excellent.”

[WATCH: Breaking down Brown’s stellar outing]

He was aided by some strong Cubs defense on the evening, including Bellinger’s game-saving, home run robbery in the bottom of the 7th inning to keep the no-hitter intact.

“It obviously [feels] really good, especially in those circumstances,” Bellinger said. “Brown was amazing — electric stuff tonight and wanted to try to do my part and make that play.”

This was only Brown’s 2nd start since re-entering the rotation. He had spent most of May in the Cubs bullpen working multi-inning stints but has not been built up for a full starter’s workload.

The team is also being cautious with his overall workload this season after he threw only 92.2 innings last year and a career-high 104 innings in 2022.

“I kinda understand how it works,” Brown said. “I trust Craig. He’s awesome. He’s so great. And he’s doing it for my career moving forward and what’s best for the team.

“We won the game — that’s huge. So however it is, we won the game. If I came out in the 2nd or the 8th or the 9th, the fact that we won is all that matters.”

Brown gave way to Hayden Wesneski in the 8th inning, who allowed a 1-out single to Milwaukee’s Sal Frelick to break up the no-hitter. Wesneski and Mark Leiter Jr. combined to keep the Brewers off the board in the 8th and handed it off to Neris for the 9th.

After a pair of groundouts, Neris walked Christian Yelich and then balked to send Yelich to second base. With 2 strikes, Willy Adames sent a soft liner into left field to drive home Yelich, but Adames was caught trying to stretch the hit into a double. That sent the game to extra innings, setting the stage for the Cubs’ offensive outburst in the 10th.

On the season, Brown now has a 2.74 ERA and 1.06 WHIP in 46.1 innings with 55 strikeouts.

In 5 games against the Brewers this season, Cubs starters have combined for 32.1 shutout innings. That feat is especially impressive given the Brewers rank 3rd in the NL in both runs and OPS.