"Scott Kazmir is either one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball, as he seems to believe, or in denial about his continuing struggles.

The Angels left-hander was rocked for eight earned runs and eight hits in five innings of Thursday's 11-8 exhibition loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, his once-vaunted fastball, which hit 94 mph a few years ago, sitting in the very pedestrian 88-mph range.

Carlos Gomez smoked Kazmir's first pitch of the game for a double, Craig Counsell singled, and Yuniesky Betancourt hit a three-run home run. Gomez's run-scoring triple highlighted a four-run second, and Jeremy Reed had a run-scoring triple in a two-run fifth.

Kazmir, who tested the Angels' patience with his 9-15 record and 5.94 earned-run average last season, has a 7.79 ERA in 171/3 spring innings, with 23 hits allowed, 12 walks and 10 strikeouts. Yet, he insists his arm feels "so much better" than it did last season.

"I feel like I was throwing the ball well," Kazmir said. "The [three] walks, I didn't particularly like, but I thought I was attacking the strike zone. A couple of things didn't go my way, and it kind of snowballed on me."

Gomez's second-inning triple was a grounder over the third-base bag, but most of the Brewers' hits were firmly struck. Kazmir found some rhythm in the third and fourth, when he struck out two and allowed no hits, but he couldn't carry that into the fifth.

"My slider felt great, and my fastball had a downward tilt to it," Kazmir said. "But they put some good swings on it. That's baseball. No matter how you feel, you've got to have some luck on your side.""