Pat Burrell's potential game-tying home run Thursday turned into a ninth-inning double when it bounced off the top of the left-field wall instead of going over it. It bounced off the netting in front of the flowerbed, about a foot short.

The left fielder threw up his arms and looked around, hoping to get the call changed, but to no avail. Wes Helms and Abraham Nunez stranded pinch-runner and tying run Michael Bourn on second, and the Phillies dropped the finale of their four games with the Brewers, 3-2, at Citizens Bank Park.

"From the reaction of the fans I figured, the way things are going, I might as well argue it and see what happens," Burrell said. "From the moment I hit it, I didn't think it was going to go, but I thought it had a chance."

The Phillies were denied their first sweep of the season, but there were some positives to take into Friday's Interleague series opener with the Blue Jays.

Manager Charlie Manuel's club has won five of seven games during a 10-game homestand that began May 11 and six of its last eight, which allowed the Phillies to reach .500 for the first time this season. That happened on Wednesday, when lefty Cole Hamels flirted with a perfect game before giving up a seventh-inning walk and home run.

Things didn't go as well for Freddy Garcia, who couldn't contain the Brewers' bats that had been absent in the series' first three games. Right fielder Gabe Gross carried the liveliest stick, homering in his first two at-bats to give the Brew Crew a 2-1, fifth-inning lead.

The loss dropped Garcia to 1-3, and extended his streak of not going deep in games. The righty hasn't pitched more than six innings in any of his seven starts this season. He departed after loading the bases with two outs in the sixth and with a pitch count of 114.

"He's got so many pitches, he can be creative up there," said catcher Rod Barajas, who called his first game since May 11. "Even when he's behind in the count, he can throw offspeed pitches. That's what happens a lot. He gets behind in the count, and you get a lot of foul balls off changeups or sliders -- those are going to add up. Going into the sixth inning, you're going to have those high pitch counts."

Garcia had pitched around the lefty Gross -- loading the bases -- to attack Tony Graffanino, but Manuel didn't give him the chance, going with Geoff Geary to escape the jam.

Garcia, who barely escaped a fifth-inning jam when Craig Counsell flew out deep to right, wasn't happy about Manuel's decision.

"Let me pitch," Garcia said. "That's all I need to do. Let me pitch. When I get in trouble, let me do my thing and try to get out of the inning. I'm really frustrated because I can't pass six innings. I'm a guy who throws a lot of innings. It's made me mad. Everybody else in the rotation is pitching good and throwing a lot of innings."

Philadelphia reliever Fabio Castro walked Brewers first baseman Prince Fielder to start the eighth, and he scored two pitches later on a Johnny Estrada double to give Milwaukee a 3-1 cushion. Aaron Rowand answered with a two-out double in the bottom of the inning and was driven in by Shane Victorino.

Burrell put a Ben Sheets fastball into the left-center-field seats for a 1-0, second-inning lead, but the Brewers starter dominated after that, allowing three hits through seven innings. He tired in the eighth -- allowing a run on a pair of two-out hits -- and Francisco Cordero got four outs for his 16th save.

Cordero thought he served up the game-tying homer to Burrell, judging by his body language. Left fielder Geoff Jenkins hurried Burrell's drive into the infield while the crowd of 31,553 waited for the home run ruling they expected after so much drama earlier in the week.

The call never came. Manuel took the field to argue but gave up after a minute and walked back to the dugout. After an eighth-inning rally to win Monday and a game-ending homer to win Tuesday, Manuel said he had the same expectation Thursday as the fans.

"We'd been playing good, and we'd been coming back and things had been going our way," Manuel said. "Yeah, I thought it was gone when he hit it."