When all was said and done, Morton got his 3rd loss of the season while giving up 7 runs (6 earned) in only 4 innings. He only walked 1 but allowed 9 hits. The bullpen did a good job although it didn't mean much at the end of the day, pitching the final 5 innings of the ball game and only allowing 1 run. Tim Wood made his Bucco debut and had a scoreless inning while walking one.
The offense was basically shut down for a second straight night and for the second time in a week by Dillon Gee, who extended his ridiculous record to 7-0 and lowered his ERA to 3.05. Despite the lack of runs, the Pirates did scatter 9 hits, three of which came from the red hot Jose Tabata, who raised his season batting average to .264 (it was at .239 prior to Wednesday's game).
Tonight marked the first Pirates blowout loss since the Brewers series 4 weeks ago. Unfortunately, it was in front of a very optimistic crowd that came out largely because of the recent surge and the flirtation with the .500 mark. The Pirates are now 2 games under and are trying to snip this losing streak in the bud.
The lineup certainly doesn't look promising, despite the hot streaks of Tabata and Andrew McCutchen, with Dusty Brown and Wyatt Toregas being the 2 catchers now and Ronny Cedeno falling back into his normal offensive ineptitude.
James McDonald gets the ball for the Pirates tomorrow to try and get the Pirates back within 1 game of an even record. Huey Lewis concert after the game, so I have no idea why you don't have tickets yet.