MILWAUKEE -- At times this season, Aaron Ashby has very much looked the part of the next star to come out of the Milwaukee Brewers' pitching development program.

Other times, well, he very much hasn't. And Saturday was very much the latter type of outing for Ashby, who walked four batters and was unable to get out of the fifth inning of the Brewers' 7-5 loss to the Reds.

That his final line -- 4 2/3 innings pitched, four earned runs, five walks, five strikeouts -- was a near carbon copy of the line from his last start (4 2/3 innings, five runs though none earned, three walks, six strikeouts) was not a coincidence. In both outings, Ashby was plagued by the exact same problem: What manager Craig Counsell calls a lack of competitive misses.

Put simply, Ashby isn't coming close enough to the zone to entice opposing hitters to still willing to take a chance and swing, so they keep the bats on their shoulders and take their walks.

"That's a step for Aaron that he needs to take," Counsell said.

Ashby knows it too, and while the results are frustrating, there's a small sense of relief knowing that the problem is something easily identifiable and not some flummoxing mystery.

He also seems to have a pretty good idea of what needs to be done to address the issue and revert to the form he flashed last month, when he walked just one batter while striking out nine over seven innings in his first outing after inking a five-year contract extension.

The key, Ashby says, is more about what he does between starts than what he does on the mound during a game.

"Everything goes back to preparation and whether or not I didn't have a great week of preparation," he explained. "You can trace everything back to not having such a great week of preparation."

Ashby thought he'd turned a corner this week, but worked just one clean inning -- the third, when Kyle Farmer grounded out to the mound, Joey Votto bounced to second and Donovan Solano struck out. He put two on in the first, then walked Aristides Aquino to lead off the second, which proved costly one batter later when Albert Almora Jr. slapped a changeup into left for an RBI double.

Almora would score three batters later, when India followed with a double to right. The Reds made it a 4-0 game in the fourth when Ashby left a 1-1 sinker up to Jose Barrero, who sent it deep to left-center for the first home run of his career and first of two for the day.

"[It's frustrating] when you know what you need to work on, you know what you need to fix and then you go out there and it's still not good enough," Ashby said.

Saturday's loss wasn't all on Ashby, however. Milwaukee's offense was just as culpable, with multiple scoring opportunities that failed to yield any runs.

In the fifth, down by a run after fourth-inning homers from Andrew McCutchen and Keston Hiura, the Brewers managed to load the bases with one out against Reds left-hander Nick Lodolo. But they walked away with nothing to show for it when Mike Brosseau, despite working a tough at-bat, looked at a sinker for strike three. Buck Farmer then took over, and got Hunter Renfroe to ground out back to the mound to end the threat.

The Brewers threatened again in the sixth, putting runners at first and second with two out, only to come up empty when Victor Caratini was thrown out at the plate trying to score on Christian Yelich's single.

Barrero and Votto added solo homers in the sixth and seventh, respectively, to provide the Reds some breathing room, and a two-run rally in the ninth fell short as the Brewers dropped their fourth in five games since trading Josh Hader and fell out of first place for the first time since June 22.

"We got beat tonight," Counsell said. "We just have to come back tomorrow and try to win the series."