MILWAUKEE — The discontent about pitchers and their performance away from T-Mobile Park has centered primarily on Bryan Woo. And to be fair, Woo hasn’t been great away from home on the whole.

Maybe George Kirby deserves some of the same critique.

For the third straight start away from the friendly confines of home, Kirby was thumped on Thursday afternoon and never gave his team the chance of finishing off their nine-game road trip with a winning record as the M’s fell, 7-4, to the Milwaukee Brewers before 35,909 at American Family Field.

Kirby was tagged with six earned runs, all coming in the first inning, as the finale of the three-city trip through New York, Houston and Milwaukee unraveled in a hurry.

The M’s finished the three-city trip 4-5, which considering how poorly they were playing going into the road swing, was a marginal improvement and enough to keep them hovering around the conversation of the postseason in the downtrodden American League.

But a win in the finale against the Brewers could have put an entirely different perspective on the trip. A winning record. A series win over the best team in baseball. Consecutive series wins for the first time since late June/early July when the M’s swept the Angels and took two of three from the Blue Jays.

Kirby never provided a chance for that to happen. He was battered from the moment Brice Turang opened the bottom of the first with a line drive single that glanced off the glove of Brendan Donovan as he made a leaping attempt. By the time the first inning was done, the Brewers had sent 10 batters to the plate, collected six hits and scored six times.

Not everything was crushed. Gary Sanchez’s broken-bat double landed on the chalk down the left-field line for a two-run double. Garrett Mitchell chopped a grounder over the drawn-in infield for another double that scored a pair. But Kirby couldn’t stop the damage until the inning had fully unraveled.

Kirby rebounded after the horrid first inning and was able to eat up outs and save a few bullpen arms with the M’s still a week away from having another day off. But he was done after 3 1/3 innings, Kirby’s shortest start of the season and shortest since he lasted just two innings last September against Tampa Bay.

Last Friday in Houston, Kirby allowed five runs with four coming in the second inning and all with two outs. At the end of July in Texas, Kirby allowed four homers and seven earned runs in just four innings.

Just a handful of road starts have gone astray for Kirby, who has been excellent at home and had some of his best starts of the entire season on the road earlier in the year. But if Woo’s 2-8 record and 5.96 ERA away from home is getting attention, then Kirby’s 3-6 mark and 5.19 ERA away from home should be as well.

The M’s chipped away to at least give themselves a chance into the later innings and notably those runs came with two outs. Donovan’s two-run double in the second inning cut the deficit to 6-2. Cole Young scored on a two-out wild pitch in the fourth and Dominic Canzone followed with an RBI single to score Jhonny Pereda.

But that’s where the comeback ended. Michael Rucker deserved credit for throwing 2 2/3 hitless innings of relief out the bullpen to allow the M’s the chance of a rally. The best chance came in the eighth inning when Taylor Ward and Cal Raleigh both walked on 3-2 pitches. Pinch-hitter Weston Wilson struck out for the second out and Aaron Ashby escaped the jam getting Donovan to ground out.

Garrett Mitchell then ended the comeback hopes with a solo homer off Jhonathan Diaz in the bottom of the eighth.

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