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No, the Pirates were not wearing their grey uniforms Saturday night at PNC Park, but make no mistake: That was very much the road version of the team fumbling and flailing through a 9-2 loss to Washington.
Per the standard road script ...
The starting pitching came up well short, Paul Maholm tagged for seven runs in 4 1/3 innings.
The offense did little, aside from Andrew McCutchen's 13th home run.
The baserunning saw another big gaffe, this by a coach.
And the defense saw, on one painful play in the Nationals' five-run fourth inning, yet another Lastings Milledge misread of a fly ball followed by catcher Chris Snyder failing to cling to a perfect relay home.
If all that sounds like a formula for winning, oh, 2.8 games per month, then that at least begins to explain the Pirates' 14-53 road record, if not why such performances have mostly been kept outside city limits.
"We continue to fight," manager John Russell said. "But you get down big early like that ... we're trying to get some momentum."
Game: Pirates vs. Washington Nationals, 1:35 p.m., PNC Park.
TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7).
Pitching: RHP Charlie Morton (1-10, 10.03) vs. RHP Jason Marquis (1-7, 8.13).
Key matchup: Maz vs. tears.
Of note: Yikes. These starters are a combined 2-17 with the two worst ERAs in Major League Baseball among starters with at least 30 innings. Keep the bullpens on alert.
That is not happening for the team, certainly not for Maholm.
His maddening pattern in 2010 had been to have a couple of good starts followed by a lousy one, but he bucked that by going back-to-back on the lousy: Five days after giving up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings in Chicago, he gave up these seven runs on eight hits and two walks.
And all the damage came after three no-hit innings that made it look like the other Maholm had shown up.
"He wasn't commanding the ball like he wanted to," Russell said. "It's something that's continued to get him. He wants to get the ball down and wasn't able to get it there. He was falling behind. That's just not the way he pitches."
Maholm was not nearly as off as he was at Wrigley Field, but ...
"You have to make your pitches, and I obviously didn't," he said. "I felt my command was better. But the results weren't good. It's frustrating. Nobody's more frustrated than me."
Maholm fell to 7-14, tied for second-most losses in Major League Baseball. Only the Baltimore Orioles' Kevin Millwood, at 3-15, has more.
Washington's fourth inning opened with Ryan Zimmerman's bloop single, and Maholm never recovered. He walked Michael Morse and gave up a bunt single to Roger Bernadina, loading the bases.
Next came that painful play: Ivan Rodriguez screamed a liner into right, Milledge backtracked while facing center field, and it hit behind him off the base of the Clemente Wall.
Russell downplayed it.
"Tough play," he said. "He's got to go all the way back to the wall, time the jump. It's one of those plays against that wall. You never know what's going to happen there."
"It was hit hard, so I broke back," Milledge said. "I thought I had a chance. Usually, those balls hang up a little bit, so I thought I could get it. At the last minute, I ran out of room. It's really tough to play balls off the fence."
That was not the end of it: The outfield relay of Rodriguez's long ricochet went from McCutchen to second baseman Neil Walker, who fired a strike to Snyder. But Snyder turned his head toward the runner a split-second early, and the ball went off the tip of his glove and to the backstop.
Washington's lead was 5-0 after that inning, then 7-0 after Rodriguez chased Maholm the next inning with a two-run home run.
And the ugliest was saved for last: When Ronny Cedeno doubled with two aboard, one out in the eighth and the Nationals ahead by 9-1, the first runner scored easily, but Milledge was thrown out at the plate after being waved home by third base coach Tony Beasley. Beasley waved the first runner home and never stopped his windmill as Milledge sprinted by.
Russell was asked if he preferred to see that runner held up.
"Yeah," he replied. "I mean, you're down that big, that run's not going to be that big a deal for us. But you're talking about one play or one run, I mean, we got beat, 9-2, so a lot of the damage was done early."
The Pirates lost their 90th game, ninth time for that in the past 14 seasons, and there still are 27 to go.
The crowd of 30,263 was the smallest for any SkyBlast game at PNC.
Colin Dunlap's blog on the Pirates is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
