updated 11:29 p.m. ET Sept. 26, 2008

MILWAUKEE - A mop-up reliever and a one-time top prospect who has lost his starting job helped the Milwaukee Brewers gain control their own playoff destiny again.

Rickie Weeks hit a three-run homer in the seventh, Seth McClung pitched four scoreless innings in relief and the Brewers rallied to beat the Chicago Cubs 5-1 on Friday night for their fifth straight win and the lead in the NL wild-card race.

“Anybody can win a game for us at any time,” said Weeks, who has just 19 at-bats in the last two weeks after being relegated to a bench role. “It’s the first time we’ve been in this atmosphere, I think, a playoff situation like this.”

With the Mets losing 6-1 to Florida, Milwaukee leads New York by a game with two to play.

“It’s a good feeling when you have destiny in your hands,” Brewers interim manager Dale Sveum said. “We don’t have to chase anybody, we’re not tied, we’re not anything. It’s in our hands now.”

The win eliminated the Astros even though Houston beat Atlanta 5-4.

Weeks has struggled with a .236 average but replaced veteran Ray Durham after the sixth. He drove reliever Chad Gaudin’s pitch deep to left field and flipped his bat as his shot cleared the wall to score McClung and Mike Cameron.

“The good thing about Rickie is he’s probably the most strong-minded guy you’ll ever be around,” Sveum said.

Corey Hart added a two-out run-scoring single in the sixth and Jason Kendall a two-out RBI double in the second to put the Brewers back on top of a race they seemed likely to win at the start of September, when they led the wild-card race by 5½ games.

But Milwaukee dropped 15 of 19 to begin the regular season’s final month. Manager Ned Yost was fired and replaced with Sveum, leaving the Brewers in a desperate scramble to reach the postseason for the first time since 1982.

“It was like being in detention for a month, then your first day out for recess, just getting out there and having fun again and playing the game where it’s fun,” McClung said. “We’re having fun right now.”

Now Milwaukee is a win away from at least a spot in a play-in game, but the Brewers would have to go on the road in every tiebreaker scenario and would rather just keep beating the Cubs.

They did on Friday night with McClung’s stellar work out of the bullpen.

“If you had to say a guy at the beginning of the year that you didn’t expect, you could almost make him our MVP, especially if we get into the playoffs,” Sveum said. “He’s done everything we’ve asked of him, and he’s done an awesome job.”

With the game tied at 1 in the sixth, Cubs reliever Sean Marshall (3-5) allowed a leadoff double to Durham and walked Ryan Braun before striking out Prince Fielder. Jeff Samardzija came in and got J.J. Hardy to pop up for the second out, but Hart flared a go-ahead RBI single to left, his second of the game after coming in hitting .172 in September.

In the seventh, backup catcher Koyie Hill was called for catcher’s interference during McClung’s at-bat. McClung reached second on a balk and moved to third on Cameron’s single before Weeks’ shot off Gaudin made it 5-1.

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