More evidence surfaced Wednesday night that baseball is a strange, unpredictable game. Day to day, there’s no telling what might happen.

One night after scoring double-digit runs (12) for the second time in the previous five games and slugging five home runs among their 11 hits, the Pirates managed only four hits in a 9-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the team’s first shutout loss since May 29. Brewers rookie starting pitcher Tobias Myers struck out six batters in eight innings, each one going down while looking at strike three.

The Pirates (44-48) entered the game at American Family Field with a two-game winning streak, but the loss means they haven’t won three in a row since May 4-6. The Brewers (54-39 and sitting in first place in the National League Central) stretched their advantage over the Pirates to 9½ games.

The inability to stack victories has kept the Pirates from contending more seriously for a playoff berth. Still, they’re only three games behind in the heavily populated wild-card race.

“We have to gain momentum,” manager Derek Shelton said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We have to have streaks like that and we haven’t been able to get going.”

The only Pirates scoring threat surfaced in the seventh inning when Rowdy Tellez doubled and went to third on Josh Palacios’ single before Ke’Bryan Hayes grounded into a 3-6-3 double play to end the inning. Myers put batters down 1-2-3 in five of his eight innings.

Pirates starter Martin Perez came into the game with an 8.31 ERA in four games against the Brewers (20 earned runs in 21⅔ innings). That was almost a run per inning, but the Brewers actually put that stat over the top by scoring five against Perez in 4⅔ innings. He threw 107 pitches, allowing nine hits and three walks and losing his fifth game in six decisions. His season ERA is 5.15.

The Brewers led wire-to-wire after the meat of their batting order produced two runs in the first inning on singles by Christian Yelich and Sal Frelick sandwiched around a double by Willy Adames. Yelich opened the rally by beating Perez to the bag by one step on a two-out infield single that was fielded by Tellez well off the first-base line. Yelich’s hustle prevented Perez from recording a scoreless inning.

“That’s baseball. He just got to the base before my foot,” Perez said.

Perez has struggled in two of his three starts since returning from the injured list. He allowed one run in seven innings July 4 against the St. Louis Cardinals, but he lasted only four innings and surrendered six runs June 28 in Atlanta.

“He didn’t get on the edges or the corners (Wednesday) like he did his last time out,” Shelton said. “He missed too much in the middle of the plate.”

Nonetheless, Perez remains hopeful that he can recover over the final 2½ months of the season.

”I’m strong, mentally. I’m going to keep doing my thing,” he said. “I’m going to prepare myself for the second half and have a better second half and help the team a little bit more. I still believe in myself and this team.”

In the fourth inning, the bottom of the Brewers order started a rally when Andruw Monasterio and Brice Turang singled before William Contreras chased them home with a double.

Rhys Hoskins’ 417-foot home run in the fifth led to Perez’s departure before the end of the inning.

Relief pitcher Brent Honeywell allowed a sixth run on Monasterio’s RBI single in the seventh, and Ryder Ryan gave up three more in the eighth on Adames’ three-run homer.

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