We have been getting thunder storms here for the last day almost and there is still more on the way.

The Brewers are trying their best to keep their eyes off the out-of-town scoreboard, but sometimes they can't help themselves.

A 7-1 win over the Rockies, coupled with losses by the Cardinals and Reds on Wednesday, left the Brewers 5 1/2 games out in the National League Central and 4 1/2 out of the Wild Card. Not bad for a team that has not won more than two straight games in six weeks.

"We're still under .500, and there are a lot of teams between us and the [Wild Card-leading] Reds," said second baseman Tony Graffanino, a veteran of pennant races. "Really, we just need to take care of our own business. Scoreboard watching can be fun -- it can be frustrating -- but if we just go out there and keep winning, we'll let everything else come into place, and I think we'll be all right."

The Brewers have won six of their last eight games, including two straight over the Rockies, ensuring at least a series win and a third straight non-losing series. The Brewers have not swept a series since taking three straight from the Indians from June 16-18.

But they have a chance to do just that on Thursday, when Milwaukee's Tomo Ohka is scheduled to face Colorado's Josh Fogg in a battle of right-handers who rely on command. Ohka pitched well in his last start, allowing a hit to just one of the final 20 batters he faced, including 12 consecutive outs to end his outing. But his second-inning throwing error let in an Astros run and cost him what would have been his first win since July 23.

Milwaukee has gotten quality starts out of its pitchers in three straight games, the first time that's happened since June 13-17, when it had four straight. Sheets' outing was perhaps the best of the bunch, as he limited the Rockies to one run while striking out seven in seven innings.

Pitching matchup
MIL: RHP Tomo Ohka (3-3, 4.01 ERA)
Ohka is 0-2 with a 6.00 ERA in his last six starts.

COL: RHP Josh Fogg (9-7, 4.62)
Fogg has thrown at least five innings in 21 of 25 starts, allowing three or fewer earned runs in 19 of his starts.

Player to watch
Geoff Jenkins has hit an even .500 in his career against Fogg, going 14-for-28 with three doubles, four homers, nine RBIs and no strikeouts. Jenkins started in right field on Wednesday night, but he's taking a back seat to Corey Hart over the final weeks of the season, and it remains to be seen whether manager Ned Yost will give Jenkins a second straight start. We can do it!

MILWAUKEE -- Ben Sheets is back, and so, amazingly, are the Brewers.

They haven't won back-to-back series in more than two months and their ace has not won back-to-back decisions all season. But in this year's National League, a 7-1 win over the Rockies on Wednesday night and a strong outing by Sheets -- not to mention earlier losses by St. Louis and Cincinnati -- were good enough to leave the Brewers feeling good about the final five weeks of their season.

"We're in it," manager Ned Yost said. "But the key to everything is that we have to win ballgames. That's first and foremost. We can look at the scoreboard all we want right now, but if we don't take care of business every night on that field, it doesn't matter.

"If we keep taking care of our business like we've done here the last couple of nights, we'll be in good shape."

The Brewers are ensured at least a series win over the Rockies and a third consecutive non-losing series. Those may be baby steps, but they at least are steps in the right direction for a team that has not won more than two straight games since a four-game run July 3-6 and has not won consecutive series since June 12-18.

The Brewers have a chance to sweep the series on Wednesday, something they have not done since taking three straight from the Indians from June 16-18.

With the Reds' loss Wednesday to the Astros, the Brewers are 4 1/2 games out of the National League Wild Card, but they're looking up at five teams. The Cardinals' loss to the Mets meant the Brewers are 5 1/2 games out of the division lead with just two teams in the way. Milwaukee has won five of its last seven games.

"We're not out of it, but I don't think we're playing like we're scoreboard watching, either," Sheets said. "You're not going to make the playoffs under .500, so I think our main goal is to get there. But we still think there's a shot. We're still going for it, but I think we realize we need to put together something bigger than three in a row or three out of five."

Sheets (4-5), whose velocity dropped dramatically in his last start, was in command from his first pitch Wednesday, allowing one run on six hits. He struck out seven, did not walk a batter and the only blemish came on a two-strike RBI double by losing pitcher Byung-Hyun Kim (7-9) with one out in the fifth.

Still, it was a major improvement over his last start against the Rockies. That came last Aug. 15, when Sheets followed up three consecutive nine-inning outings with an 11-2 loss at Coors Field, in which he surrendered 10 runs and 13 hits in six innings.

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"I didn't start in the mid-90s, just like normal, but I got it going. That's always been me. ... I'm not a 'cute' pitcher." -- Ben Sheets

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And it certainly was better than Sheets' start six days ago against the Astros, when his fastball sat in the 88-92 mph range and he was tagged for seven runs and 10 hits.

Why was his four-seamer so much better on Wednesday?

"Because I used it," he said emphatically. "They say use it or lose it, and that's true."

Yost insisted he wasn't worried.

"It was just one of those games," Yost said, referring to Sheets' struggles against Houston. "I've seen it too many times. Every pitcher is not going to have his greatest stuff every night, but the key to being a great pitcher is finding ways to get through it. Ben was good and sharp tonight.

"It's a big difference when you've got a 96 mph fastball, compared to a 90 mph fastball. He used it very effectively tonight."

Sheets pitched seven innings for the third straight start and won for the second time in that span.

He did it by getting back to basics, going with a four-seam fastball that sat consistently at 95-96 mph, his signature curveball and an occasional changeup. Sheets scrapped the cut fastball that he has been tinkering with this season.

"I pitched more aggressively," Sheets said. "Like I said, I was going to ditch some of that other stuff to get my good stuff going, and I think that's what I did. I didn't start in the mid-90s, just like normal, but I got it going. That's always been me. ... I'm not a 'cute' pitcher."

The offense provided plenty of support against Kim, who remained winless in his four starts since beating the Brewers at Coors Field on Aug. 2. Kim walked the first two batters he faced in the first inning. Prince Fielder cashed in with an RBI single, and Bill Hall followed with a sacrifice fly for a lead Milwaukee would not relinquish.

Gabe Gross and Tony Graffanino scored two runs apiece, and Graffanino and Fielder each drove in a pair of runs. The Brewers broke open the game with a four-run fifth inning, when Graffanino delivered a two-out, two-run double and Fielder followed with a single that made it 6-1. Jeff Cirillo hit a solo home run off reliever Ramon Ramirez in the sixth.

"Even though we didn't get a ton of hits, we made the most of the hits we got," Yost said.

Graffanino has provided a boost since coming to Milwaukee in the week leading up to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. He has reached safely in 23 of his 25 games played and is hitting .333 with 14 runs scored and 10 RBIs as a Brewer.

Graffanino also made a slick defensive play that helped Sheets out of a fourth-inning jam, but he preferred to put the spotlight on the starter.

"If we're going to go make a good run at this, we're going to need Sheets," Graffanino said. "He threw the ball great today. We'd like to keep him just the way he is and see him go out there every five days and throw just like that."

Like Chris Capuano on Tuesday night, Sheets faced a fourth-inning escape act. With Milwaukee clinging to a 2-0 lead, Colorado put runners at second and third with no outs on a pair of singles and a throwing error by left fielder Gross.

Like Capuano, Sheets wiggled out of trouble without allowing a ball out of the infield. He got Matt Holliday on a popup to second base, struck out Brad Hawpe and retired Yorvit Torrealba on a weak grounder to first base. That sent the Brewers on the way to the win.

  Happy Tuesday night everyone.

MILWAUKEE -- Every year, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin challenges his scouts to find at least one diamond in the rough. On the positional side, think Scott Podsednik and Brady Clark. For pitchers, think Doug Davis, Dan Kolb and Derrick Turnbow.

All have had their ups and downs, especially those three arms. But all have played key roles in Brewers uniforms over the last four years after coming to Milwaukee via waiver claims or Minor League free agent deals.

Pitching coach Mike Maddux likes to aim higher.

"Ideally, I'd like to find 12 guys like that," Maddux said, referring to the current size of the team's pitching staff. "You like to discover a foundation because a lot of guys don't really understand what their foundation is."

Meaning?

"What are your strengths?" explained Maddux, whose own 15-year Major League career ended in 2000. "How do your strengths match up against this hitter? Are your strengths better than his strengths? What's his weakness? Is your second-best pitch maybe better than his weakness? Those are the things that go into our scouting reports. Those are the things I look for."

Maddux -- "Mad Dog" in the clubhouse -- has a knack for finding those things, but his mettle as the team's pitching guru and his status as one of the game's most highly-regarded coaches has been tested this season. Even with the starting rotation back in tact and the bullpen on an upswing, the Brewers' 4.83 staff ERA ranks 15th in the 16-team National League, better only than Washington's. The bullpen has been the second-best in the league since July 28, but its 4.68 ERA still ranks last overall.

The runs are up from last season, when the Brewers ranked fifth in the NL with a 3.97 ERA, their lowest mark as a team since the 1992 Brewers went 92-70 with a 3.43 staff ERA. That also happened to be the last year Milwaukee finished with a winning record.

"But he's the same guy, with the same intensity, no matter what," said Davis, who posted a 3.39 ERA in 2004 and a staff-best 3.84 ERA in 2005. This season, Davis is tied for second on the staff with nine wins despite a 4.89 ERA.

"Mad Dog never lets the good days or the bad days get to him, and that's what makes him unique. He only gets frustrated when you execute a pitch and [the hitter] bleeds it through the infield somewhere.

"Otherwise, he doesn't change at all. He's steady. That's great, because it keeps everybody loose. You can have an 8.00 ERA, and he'll still make you laugh. A lot of pitching coaches, when you're failing, they treat you like a disease."

Added right-hander Tomo Ohka: "He's not so serious. For me, that's OK. For young guys, maybe he's more serious. In Japan, they are all serious. You can't make jokes. I like the way [Maddux] does it better because he knows how to have fun."

Injuries have played a major role in the staff's inconsistency. When the team lost right-handed starters Ben Sheets and Ohka to shoulder injuries for more than two months beginning in early May, the troubles in the starting rotation bled into the bullpen.

Young pitchers paraded through the Brewers staff with various degrees of success to the point that Francisco Cordero, acquired in a July 28 trade with Texas that has invigorated the staff, became the 25th man to throw a pitch for the Brewers this season. That tied a franchise record set in 1969 by the expansion Seattle Pilots and tied in 2002 by the 106-loss Brewers.

"We've had a lot of new faces," Maddux said. "But, hey, that's the challenge."

The Brewers are hopeful that more success stories follow. Melvin locked up Maddux with a two-year contract in 2004 that expires at the end of this season, and he won't say whether discussions have begun about an extension.

"I'd prefer to treat all of the coaches the same way," Melvin said. "We'll look at those things after the season and make our decisions then."

For now, Cordero has been a boost for Maddux and bullpen coach Bill Castro. Cordero, who lost the closer's job in Texas earlier this season, but came to Milwaukee and assumed the job in place of a struggling Turnbow, has won or saved 10 of the Brewers' 11 wins since the trade. The Brewers' bullpen ERA since his arrival is 2.04, second-best in the league to Colorado's 1.98. Take away Turnbow, and the Brewers' bullpen ERA is a league-best 1.56 over that span including a current 21-inning scoreless streak.

Maddux has a bit of a soft spot for the bullpen. He may have been slightly overshadowed by his Hall of Fame-bound younger brother, Greg, now pitching for the Dodgers, but Mike's 15-year career was solid. He appeared in 472 games, 424 out of the bullpen, and went 39-37 with a 4.05 ERA for nine teams. In a three-year span from 1991-93, Maddux averaged 57 appearances and posted a 2.77 ERA.

He did it as much with his brain as with his arm, and developed an eye for coaching during the final years of his career. In 2000, Astros manager Larry Dierker asked Maddux point-blank, "Why should I keep you on this team?"

"I said because I'll make the guys in the bullpen better," Maddux said.

Now he does the same thing, but with some better tools. The Brewers, along with about half of Major League Baseball, employ the BATS scouting system and compile data on every pitch in every big-league game. Maddux uses that information to compile the scouting reports he passes on to the pitcher and catcher each day.

"You can't argue with numbers," Davis said. "You can't argue with the fact a guy's hitting .165 on everything away. If a guy is hitting .380 on pitches inside, why pitch him inside? But in the end, we always talk about sticking with [my] strengths."

And he continues to look for those diamonds in the rough. One of Maddux's success stories this season has been 26-year-old Dave Bush, who is 9-9 in his first full season with a 4.71 ERA and secondary numbers that, as Melvin points out, compare favorably with the Cardinals' Chris Carpenter.

"I think I'm a similar pitcher to how he was, in that I'm not overpowering," Bush said. "He showed that you can be successful, so has his brother, for years. That's something I've been able to take out in the field. Bottom line is that he's a great guy to work with."

They will win. They have only beaten them once this year so far. We are also playing at Miller Park, which is a good thing

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They've sputtered since the All-Star break like the old bullpen cart at County Stadium, but manager Ned Yost remains convinced that his Brewers can still get on a roll.

"We're very capable," he said Sunday. "We've played pretty good baseball here in the last week, and there's no reason we can't get it going."

It's Brewers left-hander Chris Capuano against Rockies right-hander Aaron Cook in the opener of a three-game series on Tuesday, a rematch of the Rockies' 4-2 win at Coors Field on July 31. The Brewers won their first road series since June when they took two of three at Pittsburgh last week before splitting with the Astros at Miller Park. The team is 9-9 in August.

Why has that winning streak Yost has been waiting for been so hard to come by?

"We strike out too much, injuries," Yost said. "There are a lot of things that have not allowed us to get on a run. Your offense, when you strike out a lot, tends to be inconsistent. The offense needs to get going a little bit. We've got four or five guys struggling right now, but those things can change like that.

"You have to have a combination of solid pitching, solid defense and good, timely hitting to win ballgames. It's just putting all three of those together for an extended period of time that's tough."

Capuano will be making his eighth start in search of win No. 11. He was 10-4 at the All-Star break, good enough to make the National League squad, but is 0-4 since then with a 5.10 ERA in seven starts. Capuano has been much better in his last two starts, allowing two earned runs in 13 total innings at Atlanta and at Pittsburgh, but he took no-decisions in each of those starts.

In 19 starts before the break, opponents batted .256 against Capuano with 10 home runs. In seven starts since, they have batted .292 with 11 home runs. Right-handers hit .250 against him before the break, and have hit .307 since.

Cook has had his own struggles. He's 2-4 with a 5.05 ERA in seven starts since the break, and has surrendered four or more runs in five of his last eight starts. But buried in that stretch was an eight-inning, four-hit, two-run performance in a July 31 win over Capuano and the Brewers.

Pitching matchup
MIL: LHP Chris Capuano (10-8, 3.68)
Obscure stat alert: Catchers are hitting a hefty .324 against Capuano this season.

COL: RHP Aaron Cook (8-11, 4.09)
Cook is 4-1 with a 3.74 ERA in six career appearances against Milwaukee, despite a .303 average against.

Player to watch
David Bell has been relatively quiet of late, but he's had some success against Cook. Bell is 8-for-15 (.533) against the sinkerballer with two doubles and two RBIs.

84 accepted and counting.

 MILWAUKEE -- Sunday's game was one hour old, and Brewers left-hander Doug Davis was still on the mound trying to get through the top of the third inning.

That fact spoke volumes about Davis' Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde outing. He eventually settled down and exited after a so-called "quality start," but only after issuing four costly walks in the first three innings of a 3-1 loss to Roger Clemens and the Astros at Miller Park.

On a bright, sunny day that was murder on hitters for both teams, due to the shadows on the field, Clemens (5-4) walked no one in seven innings for his 346th career victory. Davis (9-7) walked four before recording his ninth out.

"A walk can be a big offensive weapon for you, if you can use it," Brewers manager Ned Yost said.

That's what the Brewers did the night before, matching a season-high with 11 walks and watching five of those runners score for a 6-4 win. On Sunday, Davis returned the favor, walking .209 hitter Jason Lane with the bases loaded in the first inning, and walking two more in the third. Both of those runners scored on Adam Everett's double.

"Walks will kill you, and they hurt me today," said Davis, whose 83 walks this season are second-most in the National League. "Other than that, I thought I threw the ball pretty well. Maybe I was trying a little too hard on a couple of guys, and that hurt me."

Davis was sharp the rest of the way, retiring all nine hitters he faced from the fourth to the sixth inning. Still, the way Clemens was pitching, it was all but "game over" by then.

Corey Hart extended his hitting streak to seven games when he lined a two-out, solo home run off Clemens in the bottom of the third inning. Tony Graffanino followed with a double but was stranded, and Graffanino and Hart were the only Brewers players to touch second base until Bill Hall led off the ninth with a double.

Hall, too, was stranded, as Dan Wheeler notched his fourth save.

It was another missed opportunity for Milwaukee. Saturday's win put the team in position on Sunday to win a second consecutive series for the first time since mid-June and to fall no further behind the Reds in an admittedly outside bid to win the NL Wild Card. Clemens dashed those hopes.

"He doesn't beat himself," Yost said of Clemens. "He makes you beat him with the bat. His stuff wasn't as good as I've seen him before, but his command was awesome. He was banging strikes, keeping the ball down and not walking guys. That's why he's as good as he is."

Everett's two-run double off Davis in the third was one of just three hits surrendered by the Brewers left-hander in six innings. Lane's first-inning RBI scored an unearned run because of an earlier error by Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder, who appeared to lose a routine throw from third baseman David Bell in the glare off the third-base grandstand.

"It's tough when the sun is shining on that crowd," Yost said. "With all of the white shirts, sometimes you lose it just for a split-second. That's what happened."

Said Davis, "There's no reason to walk a guy home. That was my fault. You have to pick up your teammates."

In the third, Davis walked Luke Scott with one out and Lane with two outs. He tried to go low and away with a fastball to Everett, but got too much of home plate. Davis bristled a bit when pressed on his command issues.

"It's still a quality start," Davis said. "I kept our team in the game, and we were always two swings away from tying the game up. I feel like I did my job today. The last three innings, I kept my pitch count down and got us through it. I just plain got out-pitched."

Yost agreed.

"He did a great job getting through six innings with three runs," Yost said. "He was almost at 100 pitches after four [innings]. That's a huge pitch count. And he bounced back and had a quick fifth and got us through the sixth.

"He did a nice job. It's just that the walks hurt him."

That glare that stymied Fielder in the field also tortured hitters at the plate. Miller Park is a notoriously tough place to hit when the pitcher is in the sun and home plate is in the shadows.

"You don't want to take credit away from [Clemens], because he is a great pitcher, but he looked even tougher with the shadows there," Brewers catcher Mike Rivera said. "It's like a magic trick. You see it, and the next split-second, it disappears like magic. You can see the ball out of his hand, but the second it hits the shadow, it just disappears."

Hart said he just "got lucky" when he connected on a first-pitch fastball from Clemens.

"I think he just threw a [batting practice] fastball, trying to get ahead," Hart said. "He threw me that in my first at-bat, and he threw it again. I got lucky and hit it."

Hart started in a young outfield that included left fielder Gabe Gross and center fielder Laynce Nix, who singled in the seventh for his first Brewers hit. Acquired last month from the Texas Rangers, Nix was called up this weekend and made his first Brewers start.