Andrew McCutchen homered twice and James McDonald took a no-hitter into the sixth as the Pirates defeated the Nationals, 5-3.

McDonald struck out 11, mostly with that toxic breaking ball of his, making it the fifth straight start in which he's registered at least seven strikeouts. He gave up no hits until the sixth, when Jesus Flores led off with a double. McDonald ended up giving up three earned runs in that inning, as Steve Lombardozzi followed with a double, Ryan Zimmerman knocked them both in with a single a couple batters later, and Adam LaRoche tripled. Nonetheless, this was a fantastic start by a pitcher who really appears to be coming into his own.

Meanwhile, Andrew McCutchen blasted two homers, the first of which went to the opposite field. Those two shots bring his OPS up to .942 for the season. Outside of McCutchen, some of the Pirates' bats stayed quiet, but Rod Barajas' resurgence continued, as he had three hits (including a two-run homer in the fourth), and Josh Harrison also had two hits.

The roundup of Thursday's games:

-P- Indianapolis got shut out for the third straight game, the second by 1-0. The Indians have scored one run in their last five games. As usual, they got a good start, this one from Jo-Jo Reyes, who went seven innings and allowed one run on seven hits while fanning five. Indy had just five hits, with Jeff Clement getting two doubles and Gorkys Hernandez two singles. The Indians probably won't be looking to the Pirates for offensive help; Alex Presley, in his first game since being optioned out, went 0-4 with three whiffs. Starling Marte went 0-4 and is now hitting .252.

-P- Altoona finished a sweep of Bowie with a 4-2 win. Phil Irwin went 6.1 IP, allowing eight hits and no walks, and fanning three. Jhonathan got the win by getting the last eight outs without allowing a baserunner. Elevys Gonzalez and Miles Durham each went 2-4 with a double and a HR, Gonzalez' second and Durham's first. The top four hitters in the order--Robbie Grossman, Brock Holt, Tony Sanchez and Matt Curry--combined to go 0-15 with a walk. As a side note, Manny Machado played the three games at short for Bowie. While he didn't look overmatched, I don't believe he hit a single ball hard in the three games. He had two errors today.

-P- Bradenton lost to Dunedin in 11 innings, 2-1. Gerrit Cole started and went six, allowing five hits and a run, along with no walks and four Ks. Jeff Inman pitched two innings and the only runner he allowed was on a hit batsman. He fanned two. The Marauders had only five hits, but they drew a dozen walks and managed to strand 14 runners by going 0-9 with RISP. Evan Chambers and Stefan Welch each had three walks, while Justin Howard and Benji Gonzalez each had two hits.

-P- West Virginia's problems continued as the Power lost to Greenville, 8-3. They've now lost 12 of their last 14. For some reason, Orlando Castro started and was relieved by Zac Fuesser. Castro lasted only an inning and two thirds, as he allowed four runs in the second. Fuesser gave up four runs, two earned, on seven hits and a walk in 5.2 IP. He struck out 6. Alen Hanson went 1-3 with a two-run triple before being lifted for a pinch hitter. The Power totaled only five hits.

Lineups:

Pirates:

Jose Tabata LF
Neil Walker 2B
Andrew McCutchen CF
Pedro Alvarez 3B
Garrett Jones RF
Casey McGehee 1B
Rod Barajas C
Josh Harrison SS
James McDonald P

Nationals:

Ian Desmond SS
Roger Bernadina LF
Ryan Zimmerman 3B
Adam LaRoche 1B
Bryce Harper RF
Danny Espinosa 2B
Rick Ankiel CF
Jesus Flores C
Jordan Zimmermann P

In this episode: an interview with Sam Dingman of Baltimorons about the beauty and pain of following a losing baseball team. (I also recently did an interview for Sam's podcast, and as I mention, his podcast is very funny, and I recommend you check it out.) Also, David and I discuss the demotion of Alex Presley, the return of Evan Meek and other recent events surrounding the Pirates.

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Follow us on Twitter (Charlie, David).

Opening music: Meeting Of Important People

UPDATE: Bumped.

There's been a tremendous amount of (understandable) impatience about the Pirates' offense recently, with a lot of people wondering why Neal Huntington doesn't just head over to the hitter tree and pluck some fruit and put it in his basket.

Unfortunately, there isn't much the Pirates can do right now. They can't really look to Indianapolis for much help, for example -- Indy has the worst offense in the International League, and there's no one on the entire team who has an OPS above .802. There are some guys to keep an eye on as possible replacements for struggling players, but other than Jake Fox, who I think would represent a modest improvement to the Bucs' bench, there isn't much the Pirates can do with any of them right now. Let's look at them one by one.

-P- Jose Morales might at some point be able to replace Rod Barajas. But Morales has only a .762 OPS at Indianapolis right now, and there's a reason he's gotten to age 29 without really getting an extended shot as a starter in the majors. Also, Barajas is finally hitting a bit, going 7-for-20 with two homers in his last six games. That's a tiny sample and an arbitrary endpoint, sure, but it would still be a little premature for the Pirates to completely give up on Barajas, particularly given the implications for the organization's catching depth. The Barajas/Morales situation is worth keeping an eye on, but it's too early for the Pirates to do much about it. They could option Michael McKenry, call up Morales and let him split time with Barajas, but as with the potential Fox addition, that would be a pretty small upgrade.

-P- Jordy Mercer could replace Clint Barmes. Unfortunately, while Mercer can handle shortstop and his hitting has been passable this year (.275/.358/.380, a little worse than Morales), he needs to do more to answer questions about his hitting. This is a player who batted .239 in half a season at Indianapolis last year; he can use more time there. And, more to the point, as annoying as Barmes has been, it's too early for the Pirates to bail on a $10.5 million investment. Barmes' hacktastic approach has led to 29 strikeouts and one walk this year, and I'm not optimistic. But at this point, the Pirates have to keep trying. The sensible thing here is exactly what the Pirates are doing, which is sitting Barmes more often than they ordinarily might. I'd prefer if Yamaico Navarro played a bit more short in Barmes' place, rather than Josh Harrison, but again, that's nothing to really complain much about, and neither Navarro nor Harrison have really hit much either, Harrison's unlikely homer tonight aside.

-P- Starling Marte obviously has more upside than Alex Presley or whoever else the Pirates are going to play in left field now that Presley's gone, but Marte needs to continue working on his strike zone judgment, and his development has to take precedence over whatever ails the big-league team this week.

After those three guys, who's it going to be? Chase d'Arnaud? Gorkys Hernandez? Matt Hague? None of them have even a .700 OPS. Jeff Clement, now a Class AAA veteran?

The Pirates need the position players in their organization to hit much better before they can replace much of anyone. And the trade market doesn't offer a lot of fixes right now either, as Neal Huntington recently pointed out:

"There aren't trades made in April," Huntington said. "There's very few trades of substance made in May, and there's still few trades of substance made in June. Our solutions are going to have to come internally unless we're willing to be less than intelligent and dramatically overpay for someone else's bat."

There isn't much incentive for a team to accept some bargain deal right now, with the trade deadline not for two and a half more months. The Bucs will have to wait, probably until July, to do a whole lot on the trade market, and that's if they're anywhere near contention at that point. On top of that, the fact that they don't have much talent in the high minors will probably be a bit of a hindrance if they were to try to make deals.

That leaves free-talent acquisitions, and perhaps minor trades, as the Bucs' best chances of improving their offense before the summer. Brad Eldred, who recently cleared waivers, is an example of the sort of player I mean, and as fun as Brad Eldred is, if you're considering claiming him and plugging him into your lineup as a fix for your offense, your situation is beyond desperate. The Pirates passed on him.

The Bucs could also swing a deal for a minor-league veteran, someone like Mauro Gomez or Clint Robinson (I think I saw a discussion about Robinson on a Pirates message board recently, but I can't remember where it was), and I do hope they'll go that route -- now that the Bucs have evidently decided Presley isn't a solution in the outfield, they have a spot to fill with someone who has some prayer of hitting, and starting Casey McGehee against righties, or Nate McLouth against pitchers, isn't the solution.

So that's what it comes down to. Short of doing something really creative, the Pirates' best decision might now might be to try to acquire a minor-league slugger, and otherwise just hope for the best with what they have. This isn't meant to excuse Huntington for not doing anything, since he's largely responsible for acquiring this dreadful group of hitters in the first place. But it also doesn't make sense to go cutting Barmes and whoever else just because it would please us, on a visceral level, if the Pirates were to do so.

Wednesday's action:

-P- Indianapolis dropped a 1-0 game to Lehigh Valley. Considering the players on their roster, you'd think the Indians would have a good, or at least solid, offense, but they've been pretty terrible. Well, not Pirate Terrible, not even close to that historic level of ineptitude, but bad just the same. They're last in the International League in OPS by a comfortable margin. They wasted their usual strong start, this one by Daniel Cabrera, who allowed the one run on five hits and a walk in six innings. He fanned five. Bryan Morris went two innings, allowing no hits, walking two and fanning one. Chase d'Arnaud went 0-4 and is now hitting .150, which seems to be about the norm for a starting shortstop in Pirateland. Starling Marte went 1-4 with two more strikeouts; unfortunately, no, he's not ready for The Show yet. Jeff Clement and Matt Hague each went 2-4.

-P- Altoona won in ten innings, 4-3, over Bowie. Kelson Brown went 3-3 with a double and triple. The latter hit came with two outs in the top of the tenth and drove in the winning run. (The leftfielder failed to make a diving catch on what would have been a single, but the run still would have scored.) Nate Baker started and managed to hit his pitch count with two outs in the fifth, having thrown 94 pitches. He allowed two runs on three hits and five walks, fanning one against a weak Bowie lineup. Vic Black came on with Altoona up 3-2 and gave up the tying run on a balk when he stumbled in his delivery with a runner on third and two outs. He threw two innings, allowing two hits and no walks, and fanning four. Duke Welker threw scoreless innings in the 9th and 10th to get the win. He walked one and fanned one. Robbie Grossman went 1-5 with a triple. Ramon Cabrera went 1-3 with a walk and an RBI double; believe it or not, he leads the Curve with 20 RBIs. Quincy Latimore went 2-4 and cut down a runner at the plate with a picture perfect throw.

Side Note on Black and Welker: Both these guys have been part of recent roster discussions, Black in Vlad's post on Rule 5 eligibles and Welker as part of speculation on who might get removed from the 40-man roster if Jake Fox gets called up, which he won't be. Black looked totally different from when I saw him last year. His fastball is sitting at 94, although he actually started hitting 96 consistently toward the end of his second inning, and he has a good breaking ball. He also wasn't struggling to throw strikes, as he has in the past. Command within the zone is another issue, but he's made a lot of progress and has excellent stuff. As for Welker, in his first inning he threw 96-99. He ain't coming off the roster, unless it's in some alternate dimension where Spock has a goatee and Neal Huntington likes undersized finesse pitchers.

-P- Bradenton dropped a doubleheader to FSL powerhouse St. Lucie. In game one, Jameson Taillon had his worst start of the year as the Marauders lost, 6-3. Taillon went 5.2 IP and allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks, with four Ks. He gave up his first two longballs of the season. Gift Ngoepe went 3-4 with a double and Carlos Paulino 2-3 with a triple. Bradenton was shut out in game two by a 4-0 count. Hunter Strickland got knocked out with one out in the third. He gave up four runs on seven hits, including two HRs, while walking and fanning none. For the two games, Drew Maggi went 1-7, Mel Rojas, Jr., 2-6 and Alex Dickerson 0-5.

-P- West Virginia had yet another pitching meltdown, losing to Lexington, 13-7. Ryan Hafner allowed seven runs, six earned, on seven hits and four walks in 3.2 IP. He fanned two. Jordan Cooper allowed another five runs, three earned, in two innings. Both have ERAs over 8.00. Alen Hanson went 3-5 with a double and his sixth HR, but he committed four (4, or f-o-u-r) errors. He now has 17 in 38 games. Junior Sosa went 2-3 with his first HR.

Erik Bedard struck out seven batters after having his start delayed by back spasms. Unfortunately, he also gave up three homers -- a solo shot by Ian Desmond in the third, and then back-to-back homers by Adam LaRoche and Xavier Nady, and the Nats led 4-1 after six. (Back in the Pirates' dugout, Nate McLouth must have felt lonely.)

At that point, there was a spasm of "THE GAME IS OVER" posts to Twitter, but as we all know, individual baseball games have ways of making predictions look silly -- even when Gio Gonzalez is racking up strikeouts (he ended up with 10 in seven innings) against a terrible Pirates offense. With one out in the top of the seventh, Rod Barajas walked. Two batters later, Josh Harrison (!?!) came up and smacked a 94 MPH fastball for a long homer to left-center. I guess you can't blame Twitter for not having seen that coming, but in any case, the Pirates were back in the game, with the Nationals' lead down to one.

At that point, Clint Hurdle brought in Evan Meek. Now, let's think about this for about three seconds. Yesterday, Meek was not good enough to be in the Pirates' bullpen. Today, Hurdle felt he was good enough to pitch in the seventh inning of a competitive game, even though Juan Cruz, Jason Grilli and Joel Hanrahan all got the night off last night. I'm sure the Pirates want Meek to soak up some innings with a short bullpen and Kevin Correia having gone only 3.2 innings last night, but come on -- at some point, you've got to try to win the game.

Meek started his outing by hitting Jesus Flores. After a sacrifice bunt and a strikeout, Meek then walked Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman to load the bases. The lefty LaRoche, who had already homered, walked to the plate. Hurdle left Meek in. This, Twitter users, is when you make that bold prediction. Meek grooved a knee-high cutter that was about a foot from Barajas' glove, and LaRoche socked it into the right-field corner for a bases-clearing double. 7-3 Nationals, and lo, THE GAME WAS OVER. The Bucs got one back in the eighth but lost, 7-4.