Ben Brown News: Serves up four homers in defeat

Brown (4-6) took the loss against St. Louis on Monday, allowing eight runs on nine hits and two walks while striking out three batters over five innings.

Brown began his outing with three scoreless frames before serving up a two-run homer to Lars Nootbaar in the fourth. The right-handed hurler gave up two more long balls -- both of which were also two-run shots -- in the fifth, then served up another two-run blast before being pulled without retiring a batter in the sixth. Brown has struggled with consistency this season, giving up two or fewer runs in eight of his 16 outings but yielding five or more runs six times. Prior to Monday, long balls hadn't been a big problem for him, as he'd given up zero or one homer in 14 of his 15 appearances and had posted a respectable 1.1 HR/9, so his fantasy managers have reason to hope that the barrage of home runs against him Monday was an aberration. However, with Shota Imanaga (hamstring) rejoining the rotation Thursday, Brown or Colin Rea could be moved to a long-relief role or Brown could be optioned to Triple-A.