Pirates pitchers squander 4-run lead on the way to an 11-6 loss to Diamondbacks

The Pittsburgh Pirates finally supported starting pitcher Tyler Anderson on Tuesday night — for half the game — but it wasn’t nearly enough to secure a victory.

Anderson allowed three runs in six innings and the Pirates bullpen collapsed in a 31-minute, eight-run seventh to help the Arizona Diamondbacks roll to an 11-6 victory at Chase Field in Phoenix.

The loss was the Pirates’ second in a row to Arizona (28-68), which owns the worst record in the major leagues. The Pirates (36-58) have lost three in a row.

Anderson, who is in the midst of his first and, possibly, only season with the Pirates, came into the game with eight losses in 17 starts. In those eight games, the Pirates scored a total of nine runs.

Anderson’s luck changed when Gregory Polanco homered in the fourth inning — his 10th of the season — and John Nogowski blasted the first of his major-league career in the fifth. The Pirates looked good at that point, leading 5-1 over a team that had already lost 67 games.

“We did a nice job building the lead,” manager Derek Shelton said.

But not even five runs in the first five innings could carry the Pirates.

They scored only one more run through the final four innings, and Anderson helped give away the lead after he retired the first 10 Diamondbacks hitters he faced. Josh Rojas singled and scored on Eduardo Escobar’s double in the fourth inning, and Arizona scored a second run in the fifth on the strength of four consecutive singles. Anderson doused the rally by getting Rojas to bounce into a 1-2-3 double play.

Anderson (5-9) kept alive his 18-game streak of working through at least five innings, but he encountered more trouble in the sixth. Escobar walked and scored on Christian Walker’s RBI double. The Diamondbacks trailed only 5-3, but Anderson again proved to be a survivor, retiring the next three batters to preserve the lead.

Shelton believed six innings and 77 pitches were enough for his ace, however, especially when the Diamondbacks scored one run in each of the last three innings. The manager believed Anderson was tiring.

“The pitch number didn’t have anything to do with it,” Shelton said. “It was the fact that (sixth) inning he was starting to get away from his delivery. He was missing high and arm side with his fastball, and his arm just wasn’t catching up. That’s a sign of fatigue right there.”

Anderson, who hadn’t pitched since two days before the All-Star break, said pitchers like to stay in the game, but he understood Shelton’s thought process.

“In that situation, you always want to (stay in the game), but definitely understand in that situation why,” he said.

He described pitches in his later innings as “non-competitive.”

“In the general direction of where I wanted them to go, but just non-competitive in terms of execution,” he said.

So, Shelton called on left-handed reliever Austin Davis, knowing three left-handed hitters were due up among the next four batters. “The matchup that we liked,” Shelton said.

But Arizona feasted on Davis and Clay Holmes, who combined to surrender six hits and four walks to give the Diamondbacks an 11-5 lead to take into the eighth inning.

“We come in and give free passes out, and when we’re ahead in the count, we’re putting balls in the middle of the plate,” Shelton said. “You cannot do that. It looked like (Davis) was just missing off the plate, arm side.”

The Pirates’ bullpen, which had been reliable previously this season, has thrown 14 innings in the past four games, allowing 12 earned runs, 19 hits and nine walks, with a 7.71 ERA and 2.00 WHIP.

“It’s just a matter of the volume they’ve pitched both throughout the season and over the course of the last four days,” Shelton said.

The Diamondbacks’ Taylor Widener, making only his seventh major-league start, struck out seven batters in the first three innings. He was especially effective in the third after Michael Perez’s double and Anderson’s bunt single put runners on the corners with no outs. Widener responded by striking out the top third of the Pirates’ order — Adam Frazier, Ke’Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds — to end the rally.

Widener had recorded eight strikeouts before he walked Nogowski in the fourth. Polanco, whose batting average had fallen below .200 (.197) in his previous at-bat, hit his first home run since June 27.

Nogowski had two more hits to raise his average with the Pirates to .438 (21 for 48 in 12 games). The home run made him think of those who‘ve supported him during his eight-year climb to the big leagues.

“It was a pretty special moment, man. It’s something I’ve dreamed about for a long time, and a lot of work went into it,” he said. “My mom, my dad, my girlfriend are there every step of the way, so a pretty special moment to get that. It meant a lot.”