(Sports Network) - The Milwaukee Brewers have cooled off tremendously since their eight-game winning streak and will bring their current woes to the road tonight, when they open a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field.

Milwaukee even found its way to the top of the National League Central standings, but has lost five straight and six of its last seven games to fall five games off the pace. St. Louis is also five games behind the Chicago Cubs in the division standings.

The Brewers were just swept in four games by the Cubs, suffering an 11-4 setback in Thursday's series finale at Miller Park. Prince Fielder hit a solo home run, while Gabe Kapler finished with three hits and Bill Hall added two RBI for the Brewers, who will start a six-game road trip against Atlanta and Cincinnati tonight. Milwaukee is 28-26 on the road this season.

Starter Dave Bush was saddled with the loss after he gave up seven runs -- six earned -- on five hits with a walk and three strikeouts in 7 1/3 innings.

Jeff Suppan will face the Braves for the third time this season and is 1-1 so far in the series. He hurled eight shutout innings in a 1-0 win versus Atlanta at home on May 28, then was reached for four runs in six frames of a 4-2 loss on June 25 down in Dixie. Suppan is 1-5 with a 5.61 ERA in six career starts versus the Braves, who are hitting .308 all-time against the right-hander.

Suppan is 1-3 over the past seven trips to the hill, and lost his last outing on July 27 against the Houston Astros. He yielded eight runs and 11 hits in six innings, as the Brewers suffered an 11-6 setback. Suppan fell to 5-7 in 20 overall starts this season.

Atlanta ended a five-game slide and avoided a four-game sweep at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals with Thursday's 9-4 win over the Cards in the series finale. Clint Sammons homered for the first time in his career and finished with three RBI in a winning cause. Sammons, who was called up from the minors on Monday, was appearing in his sixth major league game and recorded the first RBI of his career.

Omar Infante added a solo homer and finished with two RBI for the Braves, who are 1-3 on a seven-game homestand and 32-23 as the host this season. Yunel Escobar and Mark Kotsay both drove in a run for Atlanta. Starting pitcher Mike Hampton was touched for four runs on seven hits and four walks in five innings for the no-decision in his second start of 2008, and also added a pair of RBI.

Jeff Bennett earned the win with two innings of perfect relief. Atlanta is nine games off the pace in the National League East race.

Braves starter Chuck James is expected to be called up from the minor leagues on Friday to make his first major league appearance since May 15 at Philadelphia. James is 2-3 with an 8.22 earned run average in five starts for the Braves.

The left-hander will try to stop a personal two-game slide on Friday against Milwaukee. James is 1-0 with a 1.42 ERA in two career games (one start) in this series. He has held Milwaukee to a .250 batting average during that time.

Milwaukee has won four of the six meetings with Atlanta this season, and won two of three games at Turner Field from June 23-25.