Tampa Bay rolls past Bucs, 10-5

Evan Longoria and Eric Hinske hit three-run homers to lead the way.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Evan Longoria and Eric Hinske hit three-run homers off the Pirates’ Jimmy Barthmaier in his major league debut and the streaking Tampa Bay Rays quickly opened a seven-run lead in beating Pittsburgh 10-5 Friday night.

In a matchup of two of the majors’ worst teams over the last decade, the much-improved Rays showed the Pirates their blueprint for rebuilding, with plenty of fast-progressing hitters who can hit for power. The Rays are a franchise-best 17 games over .500 at 48-31 after winning four in a row, five of six and 10 of 13.

Barthmaier (0-1), a former Astros prospect who began the season in Double-A, was called up because the Pirates are down two injured pitchers and are thin on minor league starting pitching prospects. His inexperience showed. The right-hander gave up seven runs and seven hits in 2 1-3 innings and was in trouble from the start.

Carl Crawford singled and Hinske walked in the first ahead of Longoria’s 15th homer, a drive to left-center that made it 3-0 only five batters into the game. In the third, Hinske hit a 3-1 pitch deep into the right-field seats with two on and none out for his 13th. Dioner Navarro added an RBI double later in the inning, making it 7-0.

Longoria had four hits and scored three times, and Hinske and Crawford also scored three runs as the Rays’ top five hitters combined for 13 of their 15 hits. Crawford hit a solo homer, his eighth, off reliever Sean Burnett in the sixth for his third hit.

The Pirates, giving up 10 runs for the second time in as many games, couldn’t overcome Barthmaier’s shaky debut despite scoring four runs in the fourth against Scott Kazmir (7-3). Kazmir won for the first time in four starts despite lasting only five innings. He hasn’t pitched through the sixth inning in his last three starts.

Kazmir didn’t allow a hit until Freddy Sanchez hit his fifth homer leading off the fourth, but went on to allow four runs in the inning on Chris Gomez’s RBI single and Jack Wilson’s two-run single.

Tampa Bay came back with three more runs on Crawford’s homer, plus Carlos Pena’s sacrifice fly and Jason Bartlett’s run-scoring single in a two-run seventh against John Grabow. Pena played for the first time since breaking his left index finger June 3 in Boston, batting sixth — two spots lower than usual.

Reliever Denny Bautista, acquired in a Wednesday trade with Detroit, also made his Pirates debut but came out immediately after Akinori Iwamura’s line drive single struck him in the right forearm in the fourth. Bautista was taken for X-rays.

Rays reliever Grant Balfour pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings.