Chris Capuano can’t take the fifth, is roughed up by Cardinals

ST. LOUIS -- Chris Capuano hoped to become the Dodgers’ first 11-game winner Thursday. TheSt. Louis Cardinals decided otherwise.

The left-hander was roughed up for six runs and a season-high 11 hits in 41/3 innings in the Dodgers’ 7-4 loss at Busch Stadium, which dropped Capuano’s record to 10-6 and lifted his earned-run average to 3.13.

After giving up two St. Louis runs in the fourth inning, the Dodgers rebounded in the fifth inning to give Capuano a 4-2 lead. The Cardinals then scored four times the bottom of the fifth.

“Coming out in that fifth, I was trying to tell myself, ‘Hey, it’s a big inning here, try to shut them down,’ especially after we scored those runs,” Capuano said.

“For whatever reason I got a little bit sloppy with my location, started leaving a few balls over the middle, and they were scrappy and kept putting the bat on the ball,” he said.

His catcher, Matt Treanor, said that as the Cardinals’ hits began mounting, Capuano “was out there for a while, his velocity went down a little bit. He just couldn’t catch a break and threw a lot of pitches.”

As for losing three games in a row to the Cardinals after winning the opener of the four-game series, Capuano sighed and said, “It’s not like we really beat ourselves. They’re the world champions for a reason.”

Rare Ethier error

When right-fielder Andre Ethier let a fly ball get past him Thursday, it was notable because Ethier had not committed an error in two years.

With the Cardinals’ David Freese on second base and Matt Carpenter on first, reliever Javy Guerra threw a pitch that Tony Cruz lifted toward Ethier. As Ethier ran toward the ball, it bounced past him and Freese scored.

It was the first error for Ethier — who won his first Gold Glove last year — since July 9, 2010.

“I was going in and I was about to dive; it just kind of sunk in front of me and took a bad hop to the side of me,” Ethier said.

“When a guy is making good pitches right there,” Ethier said of Guerra, it was a play “you’ve got to come up with.”

Short hops

Infielder Adam Kennedy was put on the 15-day disabled list because of a strained right groin muscle, and the Dodgers recalled reliever Shawn Tolleson from triple-A Albuquerque. Tolleson had just been sent back to the minors a day earlier after the acquisition of Hanley Ramirez and Randy Choate in a trade with the Miami Marlins. . . Shortstop Luis Cruz had a run-scoring single Thursday, his 10th run batted in since the All-Star break . . Pitcher Ted Lilly, on the disabled list because of a sore shoulder, reported no discomfort after throwing about 60 practice pitches earlier this week.

james.peltz@latimes.com