Pirates give up 15 runs in blowout loss to Reds

Earlier this evening, the Pirates acquired Joakim Soria from the Tigers. Then tonight's game began, and the Pirates spent four tedious hours demonstrating why they'd done that. A.J. Burnett struggled through a third -- or is it a fourth? -- straight start, and Deolis Guerra was even worse. Meanwhile, the Pirates struggled with no-name pitcher David Holmberg and his unimpressive arsenal. Even after a few late runs to make the loss somewhat respectable, the Bucs still ended up losing by a 10-spot, 15-5.

They were already well behind by the time the fifth and sixth innings rolled around (thanks in large part to a first-inning three-run shot by Marlon Byrd), but that's when it really got bad. Burnett recorded one out, then hit Tucker Barnhart and gave up a single to Holmberg. Then Pedro Alvarez airmailed a throw, leading to a run. Then Deolis Guerra entered and promptly gave up a three-run homer to Brandon Phillips before giving up two more runs of his own.

I think I fell asleep around that time and woke up quite awhile later. I was confused when I then saw Guerra giving up another three-run homer to Phillips in the sixth, feeling like I must be dreaming and that maybe neither of those homers existed. Nope, they were real. But at least I didn't awakened to 5-foot-9 outfielder Jaff Decker trying to pitch in the eighth. That would have been even more confusing.

Anyway, on the plus side, Alvarez homered; Andrew McCutchen, Gregory Polanco, Starling Marte, and Aramis Ramirez all had multi-hit games; and Decker did pitch a scoreless inning. Other than that, it's probably best to file this game away and forget it.