MILWAUKEE — Manny Parra apparently pitched well enough Sunday afternoon to assure himself a spot in the Milwaukee Brewers' rotation for at least the short term.

Derrick Turnbow didn't pitch poorly enough to lose his spot in the bullpen despite loading the bases with no outs in the seventh. Mitch Stetter pitched so well in bailing out Turnbow with no runs scored that he put a lock on his position as the second lefty in the bullpen.

Seth McClung still has some value as the last man in the pen, even though he gave up the leadoff home run in the 10th inning to Wes Helms on a 0-2 pitch that resulted in the Brewers' 3-2 loss to the Florida Marlins at Miller Park.

That left starter Dave Bush the odd-man out in the Brewers' pitching puzzle, at least for now, with the pending return of center fielder Mike Cameron on Tuesday from his 25-game suspension. So Bush was shipped to Class AAA Nashville to make room for Cameron following the loss.

So now that the Brewers have their pitching predicament presumably straightened out, perhaps they now can concentrate on scoring some runs.

That lack of offense once again played a big role in the Brewers' second loss in three games to the Marlins before a second straight sellout audience of 41,656 at Miller Park.

Milwaukee scored six runs and hit .184 (18-for-98) with five extra-base hits in the series.

The Brewers went hitless in eight at-bats with runners in scoring position Sunday. Ryan Braun was the biggest culprit, stranding runners three times, including his last two at-bats in the seventh and ninth innings when he went down on strikes.

While an argument can be made that some of the Brewers' recent offensive struggles were due to the premier pitching they have faced, no such argument can be made this time. About the only excuse is that they hit the ball hard in some critical situations, but got nothing to show for it.

That was the case in the first inning when Marlins starter Ricky Nolasco loaded the bases with one out without giving up a hit.

Corey Hart managed a sacrifice fly, but in a bit of bad luck, his hard-hit liner ended up in the glove of leaping left fielder Josh Willingham. J.J. Hardy then ended the inning with a hard smash hit right at Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez. Then in the fourth, Hardy sent Marlins center fielder Cody Ross back to the wall for a putout.

About the only circumstance in which luck didn't disappear was in the seventh when Bill Hall, who had entered the game in the top half of the inning on a double-switch, uncorked his seventh home run of the season to tie it at 2.

"Over the course of the year, things like this will even out," manager Ned Yost said of hitting the ball hard with nothing to show for it. "But it doesn't feel like it when you go through it."

Parra cruised through five scoreless innings before the Marlins touched him for two runs in the sixth on Jorge Cantu's run-scoring double followed by Helms' run-scoring single.

Stetter kept the Brewers in position by striking out Jeremy Heredia and Willingham before getting Cantu to foul out to offset Turnbow's terrible outing of two walks and a single that loaded the bases.

McClung left a fastball out over the plate to Helms on the 0-2 pitch, the third time this week Brewers relievers have been burned in losses on a count that is supposed to be to their advantage.