Schalke move four points in front

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BERLIN, Germany -- Schalke 04 won 2-0 at home to bottom club Borussia Moenchengladbach on Saturday to go four points clear at the top of the Bundesliga.

VfB Stuttgart stayed in the title hunt with a 4-2 win away to Hamburg SV, a result that was enough to take them up to second place at least for a night, while Bayern Munich kept their hopes alive by coming from behind to win 2-1 at Hanover 96.

With six games left to play, Schalke lead the standings with 56 points, followed by Stuttgart on 52.

Werder Bremen, on 51 points in third, need to win their game in hand at home to Nuremberg on Sunday to reclaim second spot and cut Schalke's lead back to two points.

Bayern remain in fourth place on 50 points, still in with an outside chance of the title, after goals from Martin Demichelis and Bastian Schweinsteiger gave them a morale boosting win before their Champions League quarter-final second leg at home to AC Milan on Wednesday.

Schalke, beaten 2-0 by Bayern last weekend, were once again unimpressive in the first half against Moenchengladbach, with a decently struck long shot from Mesut Oezil about the closest they came to a breakthrough.

Their luck changed in the 57th minute when Kevin Kuranyi set up Gerald Asamoah for a simple finish from close range.

Kuranyi scored the second himself in the 71st minute, heading in a Christian Pander cross for his first Bundesliga goal since mid-February.

Gladbach are now five points adrift at the bottom.

Stuttgart were in much better form in their game against Hamburg -- at least for the first hour. Three headers from Cacau, Sami Khedira and Roberto Hilbert put them 3-0 up with less than half an hour on the clock.

Hamburg's Aenis Ben-Hatira and Stuttgart's Thomas Hitzlsperger were sent off in separate incidents before Stuttgart added a fourth through Fernando Meira, another header.

Hamburg then rallied with goals from David Jarolim and Ivica Olic.

Bayern had an excellent 2-2 draw with AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday but their faint hopes of a domestic title looked set to be extinguished completely when a deflected shot from Arnold Bruggink put them behind with a minute to go in the first half.

Bayern had created precious little but they claimed an equalizer out of nothing eight minutes after the break when Andreas Ottl chipped the ball over the defense for Demichelis to blast in.

Their winner came with 19 minutes to go, as Lukas Podolski combined brilliantly with Ottl to set up Schweinsteiger for a cracking drive from the edge of the box and in off the underside of the bar.

Hanover's Frank Fahrenhorst was shown a red card eight minutes later and Bayern held on comfortably.

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