PITTSBURGH — This was the start many wanted Max Kranick to make.
One he very well may have earned, too.
But unless the rookie plans on impersonating Angels two-way star Shohei Ohtani for some sort of second act, it really doesn’t matter, not with how mightily the Pirates offense has struggled of late.
Badly bereft of anything resembling power or run production, the Pirates again went quietly to the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday afternoon at PNC Park, dropping a 11-2 decision for their sixth loss in a row.
The Pirates have produced a total of eight runs during that stretch and haven’t scored more than twice in a game since a 7-2 victory last Sunday in St. Louis.
Milwaukee, meanwhile, stretched its winning streak to 11 games, the second-longest in franchise history. The Brewers have outscored opponents, 84-28, during that time.
After Kranick tossed five perfect innings in that Sunday game, needing only 50 pitches to do it, Cody Ponce started instead and suffered a different kind of fate Saturday.
Ponce, who needed 38 pitches to escape the first inning and never made it out of the second, the result of what the Pirates described as right arm soreness.
Meanwhile, the Pirates struggled against Brewers starter Eric Lauer, who wound up working 6 1/3 innings and allowed just one run, striking out four.
The Pirates (29-53) had just one extra-base hit — Ben Gamel’s solo home runs in the eighth — while their pitchers walked eight, which obviously isn’t a recipe for success.
Ponce labored early, with the Brewers scoring three runs on three hits and a pair of walks. It also came to, as manager Derek Shelton described before the game, the “execution of pitches.”
Or lack of that, as Ponce came nowhere close to executing pitches, especially his breaking ball, and paid the price.
Right fielder Avisail Garcia pounded a hanging, 2-1 slider into center field to give Milwaukee a 2-0 edge. The next batter, second baseman Jace Peterson, then pulled a 3-1 cutter that Ponce left middle-middle, the ball bouncing at the base of the Clemente Wall to score another run.
It looked like Ponce might straighten himself out in the second, when he struck out the first two men he faced, but a double by left fielder Christian Yelich extended the inning and led to some trouble.
The Pirates should have escaped without any further damage when catcher Omar Narvaez skied a ball into shallow left. However, it dropped at Gamel’s feet as Pittsburgh bungled another routine play, one of a few in this one.
Gamel appeared to have trouble seeing the ball. Ke’Bryan Hayes also tried his best to get there, although the sun seemed to give Hayes issues as well. Kevin Newman peeled off the play to cover third base.
Meanwhile, the ball dropped to the grass, and Yelich scored to create a 4-0 Brewers lead. Garcia picked up his third RBI of the game by taking fastball at the top of the zone the other way, through the shift on the right side for a 5-0 Milwaukee edge.
Garcia would be Ponce’s last batter, as head athletic trainer Rafael Freitas and Shelton quickly came out to check on the pitcher.
The conference didn’t last more than a couple seconds before Ponce walked slowly back to the dugout, his day done after allowing five earned runs on six hits and three walks in just 1 2/3 innings, raising his MLB ERA this season to 11.17.
The Pirates got on the board in the bottom of the second when Gamel singled and scored on Jared Oliva’s single to center, the first major league RBI of Oliva’s career.
Milwaukee added to its lead in the sixth and the eighth, with a pair of runs in each frame. Peterson’s single produced one of the two sixth-inning runs before Narvaez scored on a wild pitch thrown by Chris Stratton.
In the eighth, Garcia knocked in one on a play that was originally scored an error on Adam Frazier but changed to a base hit. Narvaez scored when Peterson hit one between first and second, and Phillip Evans was charged with an error.
Gamel’s homer competed his 2-for-4 day, which upped his average over his past 25 starts. The outfielder is hitting .421 with three homers against his former team this season.
