Pirates’ loss clinches 19th consecutive losing season

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Wearing Hawaiian shirts as they headed out for a cross-country flight, the Pittsburgh Pirates insisted that a record 19th consecutive losing season was a year of progress.

“This isn’t anything like before,” losing pitcher Charlie Morton said after Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat to St. Louis clinched another sub-.500 record. “The atmosphere is totally different. We were in contention for a good while. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”

Yadier Molina hit a tiebreaking, two-run double in the fourth for the Cardinals.

A year after going a big league-worst 57-105, the Pirates were 51-44 and led the NL Central by a half-game before play on July 20. But they have gone 16-38 since, leaving them at 67-82.

“Our how-to is going to have to get better, because we’ve got to get this organization to the point where we’re no longer talking about consecutive losing seasons,” said first-year manager Clint Hurdle, who planned the Hawaiian shirts in advance.

When the Pirates last had a winning season, Barry Bonds led them to Game 7 of the NL championship series. At times this year, it seemed like the Pirates finally were on their way to a winning season.

“They compete,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “Clint and his coaching staff have done a really good job of getting their players to play hard for nine innings. They’ve played us tough and everybody else, too.”

St. Louis, which has 13 games left, has won seven of eight and remained 41/2 games behind Atlanta in the NL wild-card race. The Cardinals began the day 61/2 games back of Milwaukee in the NL Central.

Edwin Jackson (5-2) allowed two runs and eight hits in 71/3 innings and improved to 4-0 in his career against Pittsburgh. Three relievers combined to hold Pittsburgh scoreless over the final 21/3 innings. Jason Motte pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save in 10 chances.