Did this guy come as advertised, or what? He's 4-0 with the Brewers and working on a streak of 3 complete games. He's struck out 24 batters in 24 innings while walking 6.

Anyone who has taken a peek at what CC Sabathia has done in four starts as a Milwaukee Brewer knows he has been every bit the ace he was touted as when the team traded for him.

After Sabathia’s first start, he joked that he was too new to the team to ask manager Ned Yost to go out for another inning, but they could be perfect strangers for life and he’d still go out for as many innings as he’d like based on the way he’s been pitching.

Sabathia was dominant for his third consecutive start, going the distance for a shutout. He allowed three hits as he carried the Brewers to a 3-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, putting two games worth of space between the teams in the wild-card race Wednesday at Busch Stadium.

“I know how good he is,” said Yost, who watched from the clubhouse starting in the fifth inning after being ejected for arguing a check-swing call. “It doesn’t surprise me because I knew he was a fierce competitor, I knew that he was as durable as could be, I knew that he filled up the strike zone with three different pitches. So it doesn’t really surprise me what he’s capable of doing.”

Sabathia’s run of three consecutive complete games is the first by a Milwaukee pitcher since Cal Eldred had four straight in 1994. Sabathia took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, walked two, struck out seven and was efficient with his pitches, needing just 106 to face 31 batters.

With a 4-0 record and an earned-run average of 1.36 since joining the Brewers, Sabathia has been as good in his first four starts as anyone in the history of the franchise.

“They were better than my first four this year,” said Sabathia, who started the season 1-5 with the Cleveland Indians. “I didn’t really have any expectations. I knew we had a good team, I knew we scored runs and if I kept us in some games, I could win some games. You don’t try to go out and throw CG’s every time.”

Sabathia said a big reason for his success has been catcher Jason Kendall, which every starter on the staff has credited with their success at one time this season.

Sabathia said he’s shaken off Kendall maybe three times in his four starts.

But Kendall was quick to deflect any credit given to him by last year’s American League Cy Young award winner.

“That speaks for itself,” Kendall said. “He knows how to pitch. That’s a good baseball team over there, but when you’re on, it doesn’t matter who’s hitting.

“When you have three dominating pitches and a fastball like that, I’m just suggesting. A lot easier to catch than it is to hit. I know that because I faced him before.”

Unlike Sabathia’s second complete game in San Francisco when he got a nine runs to work with, the offense sputtered a little, going 0 for 12 with runners in scoring position.

The game was scoreless until J.J. Hardy homered in the fifth, and Rickie Weeks followed an inning later with a sacrifice fly to score Mike Cameron.

Ryan Braun, who was 4 for 5 and a double shy of the cycle, hit an opposite-field homer in the ninth for some added insurance.

But Sabathia needed only one.

The only time he was in any trouble was the sixth when he gave up two two-out singles — the first broke up the no-hitter — to face Albert Pujols. With the crowd screaming, Sabathia got him to fly out to center on a 98-mph fastball.

Sabathia’s first four starts have shown exactly why the organization felt it was worth probably renting Sabathia for the remainder of the season in exchange for one of its top prospects, Matt LaPorta. The Brewers have identified their time as now, and Sabathia is a major reason why.

“We were playing very good baseball before we made any of these moves,” Yost said. “This just helped to bolster it. But it does give you a little extra confidence knowing every time you walk in this locker room, we’ve got a really good team capable of winning every night.”