Morning Pirates Buzz: Pirates in market for pitching, Alvarez on brink of demotion?

The Pirates (32-29) dropped their second straight last night as the Baltimore Orioles cruised to a 7-1 victory.

Jake Arrieta (3-8) was dominant in ending a personal six-game losing streak. Arrieta gave up one run and seven hits, matching a career high with 9 strikeouts.

While the Pirates couldn’t hit in key situations, going 1-13 with RISP (Clint Barmes 0-2, Neil Walker 0-3, Jose Tabata 0-1, Andrew McCutchen 0-2, Mike McKenry 0-1, Ales Presley 1-2, Pedro Alvarez 0-2) they also couldn’t pitch as Kevin Correia (2-6, 4.43 ERA) allowed 10 hits and 5 runs in six innings pitched.

Some rumblings coming out this week include talk of despite a pressing need to add hitters, some members in the Pirates brass believe adding a starting pitcher to go with A.J. Burnett, James McDonald and Erik Bedard is just as big of a top priority as a hitter.

It appears it might be becoming an even bigger one as Kevin Correia continues to give the Pirates little to nothing on the mound, Brad Lincoln is best suited for the bullpen, Jeff Karstens can’t get healthy and Charlie Morton has been shutdown due to an elbow injury that might require season ending surgery.

While the Pirates have some options down on the farm in the likes of Rudy Owens who deserves a shot, the Pirates are likely to be in the market of looking to add a veteran back of the rotation starter.

“No. 1, we need to execute better off the mound. No. 2, when we got chances to score runs, we have to perform the offensive fundamentals to go along with that, ” manager Clint Hurdle said. “The game is pretty simple when you break it down, and they have outplayed us back-to-back nights. It shouldn’t be any surprise to anyone here that we’re down two.”

Manager Clint Hurdle is growing more and more frustrated with third baseman Pedro Alvarez (.191 – 8 HR – 24 RBI) who continues to show he can’t hit Major League pitching. Alvarez was 0-4 with 1 strikeout in last night’s 7-1 loss and Alvarez is now 3-for-34 with no extra base hits in his last 10 games.

There is also chatter that Hurdle’s frustrations might also be brewing from some behind the scenes things with Alvarez who was benched last week.