ATLANTA -- Braves fans cheered, Truist Park’s LED lights twinkled, fireworks exploded overhead and Dansby Swanson circled the bases after hitting the tie-breaking, two-run home run that turned the momentum in the Brewers’ 8-1 loss on Saturday night. 

It was too loud to hear Brewers ace Brandon Woodruff barking at umpire CB Bucknor while striding to home plate, but it was obvious that Woodruff was using his outside voice. 

A disputed pitch preceding the first of Swanson’s two home runs on a seven-RBI night for the Atlanta shortstop proved a pivotal point in the Brewers’ first loss in five games, and only their fifth loss in 14 games since the All-Star break.

“Sometimes you have calls go your way, sometimes you don’t. That’s part of it,” Woodruff said. “Tonight was a tough one. That one was tough. It [stinks] because we’re playing good baseball and something like that kind of bugs me a bit. I’ll get over it.”

Here’s something to help: The Brewers reached the end of July with a seven-game lead over the second-place Reds in the National League Central standings after Cincinnati let a ninth-inning lead get away against the Mets before losing in extras. The Cardinals will begin August 9 1/2 games back, the Cubs 11 1/2 games back and the Pirates 21 1/2 games back.

But the Brewers haven’t been hitting -- or winning -- lately behind their No. 1 starter, scoring an average of 2.47 runs per Woodruff’s nine innings -- the lowest support for any qualifying pitcher in baseball.

He was in the sixth inning of a 1-1 game when Swanson stepped up to the plate with a runner aboard and one out and worked to a 2-2 count. Catcher Manny Piña set up outside and Woodruff spun a curveball over the inner corner of home plate. Statcast had all but a sliver of the baseball in the strike zone. Swanson took a step toward the dugout as if he’d struck out. But Bucknor called it a ball. 

“It was strike three. I think the hitter told us that, too,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. 

“I thought it was a strike, just like I think everybody else did,” Swanson said. “I'll definitely be honest about that. I think my momma would come in here and whoop me if I wasn't being honest.”

Woodruff gestured in frustration and returned to the mound for another try. It was his worst pitch of the night, a slider right down the middle which Swanson swatted to the seats in left-center field for a 3-1 Braves lead that Atlanta wouldn’t relinquish.

“I’m not going to say some stuff,” Woodruff said. “I should have done a little better job of controlling my emotions there. I thought I did an OK job. I think it was the right pitch, [the one] I threw next, but it was in such a bad location he had time to adjust to it.”

It proved the final pitch for Woodruff, whose ERA rose from 2.14 coming into the night, best among National League qualifiers, to 2.26. Woodruff's rotation mate, Freddy Peralta, is the NL’s new ERA leader at 2.17, followed by the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler at 2.19, then Woodruff.

Saturday's game got away from the Brewers when a night of stellar defense -- third baseman Luis Urías and first baseman Eduardo Escobar teamed up on a smooth play in the first inning, and Avisaíl García started a terrific relay home to deny the Braves the lead in the fifth -- went south.

In the seventh with two outs, the bases loaded and righty John Curtiss pitching in his Brewers debut, shortstop Willy Adames made a terrific diving stop of Jorge Soler’s grounder up the middle. Instead of going to second base for an inning-ending forceout, Adames threw to first, and Escobar couldn’t handle a one-hop throw.

A run scored, and then things got much worse for the Brewers when Swanson hit a grand slam that clanked off the left field foul pole to blow the game open.

Afterward, Woodruff kept coming back to the two-pitch sequence in the sixth.

“You’re out there and you’re trying to give your team a chance to win and do your best on the mound,” Woodruff said. “All the fielders are doing their best. The relay to home was an unbelievable play and it almost seems like it was taken away from you a little bit. That’s part of the game. You get over it and move on to the next one. This game’s hard enough."