But with all of the cap-tipping they have done in the last two weeks, a sore wrist or two does not seem totally out of the question. On Wednesday the Brewers were metaphorically tipping their caps to Dodgers sinkerballer Derek Lowe, who allowed only one unearned run in eight dominant innings and sent the Brewers to a 2-1 loss at Miller Park.
It was another tough-luck loss for Brewers left-hander Chris Capuano (11-10), who allowed only two runs and five hits in eight solid innings but suffered his sixth loss in seven decisions since the All-Star break. The Brewers missed a chance to sweep the National League West Division leaders, an achievement that would have turned the page on their preceding 10-game losing streak.
"Cappy just matched up with the wrong guy tonight," said Brewers manager Ned Yost, repeating a pervasive theme of the Brewers' 10-game slide against the premier pitching staffs of the Marlins and Astros. "We couldn't get him any runs. You've got to take your hat off to Derek Lowe tonight."
Lowe (14-8) was named Monday as the NL Pitcher of the Month for August, in which he finished 4-1 with a 1.69 ERA. He found the same form on Wednesday, recording 20 of his 24 outs on ground balls by employing a "heavy" sinker that the Brewers couldn't figure out.
"That's the best I've ever seen Derek, and I've seen him a lot," said Brewers outfielder Kevin Mench, who is 7-for-30 lifetime against Lowe, including 1-for-3 on Wednesday. "He threw exceptionally well tonight."
The key was his sinking, two-seam fastball.
"It's like playing whiffle ball," Mench said. "You know how you take a whiffle ball and you turn it over, so the circle is down? That's what it looked like today. He was throwing one of those whiffle-ball sinkers today, and we helped him by beating it into the ground."
Said Capuano: "He was masterful out there."
Lowe struck out one, walked one and made way in the ninth for closer Takashi Saito, who recorded his 18th save.
"Sometimes you play good games like we played tonight, but you really have to give credit where credit's due," Yost said. "Derek Lowe pitched a great game. I thought our at-bats were OK, we played great defense and we got great pitching. We just matched up against a guy that's the reigning National League Pitcher of the Month. He's been hot. He's been beating everybody."
Lowe needed only 79 pitches to get through eight innings. Only two pitchers this season have been more efficient: Toronto's Josh Towers threw 76 pitches in eight innings at Tampa Bay on May 14 and the Dodgers' Greg Maddux threw 68 pitches in eight innings against the Giants on Aug. 13.
The Brewers' three-hit effort matched a season-low and came after they banged 27 total hits in consecutive wins to start the series. Yost was not totally thrilled with his club's offensive approach.
"You have to work hard to make him get it up," Yost said of Lowe's sinker. "If it starts thigh-high or a little bit lower, you've got to 'take' it, because you're just going to pound it into the ground. The bottom just falls out. It disappears."
The Brewers took a 1-0 lead on Lowe in the second inning, when Bill Hall scored from first base as Dodgers left fielder Andre Ethier bobbled Geoff Jenkins' double. The run scored unearned on the first of two L.A. errors.
The Dodgers tied the game in the fifth, when Mench misplayed a Matt Kemp hit into a triple and Rafael Furcal followed three batters later with a game-tying sacrifice fly. The visitors took the lead in the seventh on Kemp's go-ahead single.
Mench made his 25th start for the Brewers in left field and believed Kemp's relatively slow ground ball was going to hit the wall that juts out near the foul line, forcing it to carom toward center field. But the baseball missed that wall and instead rolled all the way into the corner as Mench gave chase.
"You're not sure what it's going to do," Mench said. "Sometimes they get topspin, hit the corner and kick out. There's not much you can do with that one. You hope it hits the corner and kicks out."
Capuano lost for the sixth time in seven decisions since making the NL All-Star team, despite his sixth straight quality start (six or more innings and three or fewer earned runs) and also the sixth straight by a Brewers starting pitcher. Capuano leads the Majors with 24 quality starts.
"I'm keeping the team in games, and that's rewarding for me," said Capuano, who said his changeup -- his best pitch -- was inconsistent on Wednesday. "You'd like to come out a winner, but all you can do is take your hat off to the other guy. I feel like I'm doing my job, and that's all I can do. ... I don't feel mentally down or anything. Obviously, I would like the team to be winning."
Does Yost worry about frustration setting in?
"He's smart enough to know that he did his job," Yost said. "These guys need to control what they can control, and Cappy controlled his end of it."