By Adam McCalvy

Kyle Lohse will miss his next Brewers start with what manager Ron Roenicke called “irritation” in the veteran’s right elbow, a potentially troubling development considering Lohse is nine starts into a three-year, $33 million contract. He began feeling discomfort “two or three starts ago,” Roenicke said, and was recovering slower than usual between starts.

Another right-hander, Mike Fiers, will take Lohse’s turn on Saturday against the Pirates at Miller Park. Lohse is tentatively scheduled to return to the rotation for one of the Brewers’ games at Minnesota next week.

“He could go out and pitch,” Roenicke said. “But because he didn’t have a Spring Training, we would rather try to get rid of this, so we’re going to bump him a start.”

Is an elbow issue a red flag?

“He didn’t seem that concerned about it, so I’m hoping that it’s not that big a deal,” Roenicke said.

Lohse is 1–5 this season despite a respectable 3.79 ERA, mostly because he has the worst run support (2.11 runs per game) of the 59 National League starters with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. The Brewers are 2–7 when he starts and have scored eight total runs in the seven losses, with more than one run in only two of those games.

Fiers started the season in the Major League pitching’ rotation but was bumped to the Minors after losing his season debut against the D-backs, then recalled to the Brewers’ bullpen when left-hander Tom Gorzelanny was placed on the disabled list. Fiers was the winning pitcher Tuesday night after escaping a bases-loaded, one-out pickle in the fourth inning and going on to work 1 2/3 scoreless frames against the Dodgers.

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