Fish fry Bucs; Morris hit hard

The Pirates lost for the sixth straight game as Matt Morris faltered again.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Pirates are paying Matt Morris $10 million to anchor their starting rotation, or nearly half of Florida’s $22 million payroll. So far, the Marlins are getting a much bigger payoff for their bucks than the Pirates.

Hanley Ramirez, Josh Willingham and Dan Uggla homered and Marlins pitcher Mark Hendrickson, normally one of the majors’ worst hitters, had two hits while pitching eight innings of Florida’s 10-4 victory over the slumping Pirates Monday night.

Ramirez, a .457 career hitter in PNC Park, hit a two-run homer during a four-run second inning against Morris (0-3), giving him three homers in two games. Willingham added a two-run drive as Florida scored three more times in the third to make it 7-2.

Uggla hit a solo homer and had three of Florida’s 11 extra-base hits. In all the Marlins had 16 hits, and all nine Marlins starters got at least one of them.

“The way Mark threw took the pressure off us, He started shutting them down, and that’s what you’ve got to do to win ball games,” Uggla said.

“He kind of let us relax a little bit and the next thing you know, we’re putting good swings on balls and getting runs.”

The Pirates, coming off a miserable road trip in which they were outscored 52-18 while losing five of six to the Dodgers and Cubs, lost their sixth in a row and gave up double-digit runs for the third consecutive game. They hadn’t done that since Montreal scored a combined 35 runs during a three-game sweep in June 1994.

Pirates manager John Russell said constantly falling behind by big margins is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on his own hitters.

“It’s tough when you look up after two or three innings and the opposing team has put up eight runs. It’s hard,” Russell said. “It shuts down a lot of the things you can do as an offensive club.”

Especially when the starting pitcher is shutting no one down.

Morris said he felt excellent between starts, had productive sessions with pitching coach Jeff Andrews and the ball club held a pregame meeting in which Russell said “all the right things.”

Morris surrendered homers to Ramirez and Willingham while yielding eight runs and nine hits in four innings.

Morris, whose salary represents about one-fifth of the Pirates’ payroll, has allowed 25 runs, 21 earned, in 202‚Ñ3 innings and has a 9.15 ERA.