Milwaukee — Coming off an 8-3 homestand, the Braves tried to pack some mojo for Milwaukee.

Before any muscle memory of their miserable road record could creep back into their road grays, Kelly Johnson homered in the first inning and Gregor Blanco in the second.

But making a 2-0 lead stand up for seven more innings, against the pull of the worst road record in the majors, wore thin, and so did the effectiveness of Tim Hudson. Pitching into the eighth inning to protect a worn-down bullpen, Hudson gave up a run each in the seventh and eighth, before Jeff Bennett gave up the game-winner in the ninth of a 3-2 Brewers win.

"It seems like it's kind of been the story for us, these road games, playing pretty good baseball but letting them get away from us somehow," Hudson said. "Just out of the reach of us."

Bill Hall led off the ninth with a broken-bat single off Bennett, took second on a sacrifice, third on a stolen base and scored on Mike Cameron's sacrifice fly. The loss left the Braves 6-17 on the road and 2-13 in one-run games.

The Braves also lost Matt Diaz to a knee injury late in the game. He crashed into the wall in left-field foul territory in the sixth inning, and he left the game in the next inning, the result of a left knee strain and a laceration on the knee that needed stitches.

Diaz was placed on the disabled list after the game and is headed to Atlanta for an MRI today.

"This was a tough one tonight," Brian McCann said. "You're not going to win if you score two runs very much. And that's what you have to look at."

After getting no more than five innings from a starter in five games, Bobby Cox needed Hudson to go longer and decided to send him back out for the eighth, having thrown 103 pitches.

"I wasn't going to use [Blaine] Boyer at all," Cox said. "Bennett to one hitter or an inning and [Manny] Acosta to close, and that was it. But [Hudson] was plenty strong. You can subtract four off his [pitch] total. He got the last out."

Hudson got two outs easily enough to start the eighth, but Prince Fielder singled and Corey Hart bent an 0-2 pitch for a double past Chipper Jones. With runners second and third, Cox called for an intentional walk of Russell Branyan, who had doubled an inning before, to bring up J.J. Hardy with the bases loaded.

Hardy singled off Hudson's foot to even the score 2-2. Hudson had gotten 13 outs on groundballs to that point in the game but couldn't get that one to find his glove.

"I still felt like I was making pretty good pitches late in the game," said Hudson, who finished with a season-high 121 pitches, including the intentional walk. "They started changing their approaches. Earlier in the game they were a little more patient.

"Later in the game, they put the ball in play earlier in the count. We let it slip it away. It's a game we probably all felt like we should have won."

On a cold night, the Braves warmed up to pitcher Dave Bush with Johnson's sixth home run of the year and Blanco's first ever major-league home run. Bush has allowed 12 home runs, second-most in the National League.