MILWAUKEE _ The last time Joel De La Cruz started a game, the Braves lost but he didn't pitch badly. The same couldn't be said of his performance Wednesday, when their four-game winning streak ended largely because of a particularly rough third inning against the Brewers.
Chris Carter hit a towering three-run homer in a four-run inning that erased the Braves' early lead and sent the Brewers to a 4-3 win at Miller Park, handing Atlanta just its fifth loss in 15 games and spoiling a two-homer night for Freddie Freeman.
Freeman led off the fourth and eighth innings with homers, giving him 21 _ the fourth time he's hit more than 20 homers in six full seasons. He has two multi-homer games this year and eight in his career.
The Braves, who won the first two games of the four-game series, can still clinch their third consecutive series by winning Thursday's finale.
De La Cruz (0-5) was charged with seven hits, four runs and two walks in four innings before leaving with a right-knee contusion after being hit by a comebacker on the last pitch he threw. X-rays were negative and the 27-year-old rookie said he intends to be ready for his next start.
Three Braves relievers pitched four innings _ two by Jose Ramirez _ to run the bullpen's scoreless innings streak to 15 and lower its August ERA to 1.31.
The Braves' last loss before Wednesday was a 1-0 decision at St. Louis in the first game of a 10-game trip, a three-city roadie that'll end with a three-game series at Washington. In that loss to the Cardinals, De La Cruz was charged with two hits, one run and five walks in 5 1/3 innings and the Braves were shut out on three hits.
They staked him to a 1-0 lead in the third inning Wednesday when A.J. Pierzynski doubled and scored on Ender Inciarte's single. De La Cruz and the Braves wanted a shutdown inning in the bottom of the third and got something entirely different.
De La Cruz's trouble started with a leadoff bunt hit from Jonathan Villar, the first of three consecutive singles. Ryan Braun had the third of those hits drive in the tying run, and one out later Carter's 26th home run opened up a three-run lead.
Carter pulverized a hanging 1-2 slider, driving it an estimated 442 feet. It hit a spot on the bottom of a large center-field scoreboard about 60 feet above the field.
De La Cruz got ahead in the count 0-2 on a couple of sinkers, then threw a sinker for a ball before Carter squared up the next pitch and watched it sail a long way, putting the Brewers ahead, 4-1.
Freeman led off the next inning with a home run of almost equally epic proportions, a ball that caromed off the scoreboard about 30 feet to the left of where Carter's ball struck it. Freeman's homer off right-hander Chase Anderson (7-10) was estimated at 436 feet.
His leadoff homer in the eighth _ on the first pitch that right-hander Corey Knebel threw _ put him over 20 homers for the first time since Freeman hit 23 in 2013, his third straight 20-homer season to start his career.
But with bases empty both times, the Freeman long balls only reduced the lead to 4-3.
The Braves wasted their other scoring opportunities, failing to score after a leadoff walk and two-out single in the sixth, and stranding two runners in the seventh when Erick Aybar grounded into an inning-ending double play.
Aybar's 14-game hitting streak ended Wednesday, the night after Inciarte's 19-game hitting streak ended.
