On Wednesday night, the Pittsburgh Pirates sent starter Charlie Morton to the mound to oppose former Pirate Edinson Volquez of the Kansas City Royals for the rubber game of a three-game interleague series.

Neil Walker drove in the lone run for the Pirates on Wednesday night with a sacrifice fly to Lorenzo Cain. The flyout scored Jaff Decker and the Pirates led 1-0 in the top of the third inning.

In the bottom of the fourth, Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer homered to tie the game at one off of Pirates starter Charlie Morton. The dinger was Hosmer's ninth of the year.

In the seventh inning, Jarrod Dyson singled on a bunt ground ball to first base. This allowed for Omar Infante to score and put the Royals up 2-1. Later in the inning, Mike Moustakas was able to put the nail in the coffin with a three-run blast that scored Alex Rios and Dyson to make it 5-1 Kansas City.

Charlie Morton would suffer the loss for the Pirates, dropping to 6-4 on the year with a 4.59 ERA. Morton went 6.2 innings, giving up five earned runs on seven hits and two home runs. Edinson Volquez, the former Pirate, went 7.2 innings and allowed just one earned run on eight hits to go along with eigth strikeouts. Volquez earned the win to improve to 9-5 with a 3.15 ERA on the year.

ANALYSIS: The Pirates are not scoring runs and it is costing them. Obviously they scored a run but one run does not win many games no matter how good a team pitches, which the Pirates have done well this year. The Pirates have now lost five of six games since the All-Star Break, and in those five losses they've scored just nine runs total. The Pirates scored 10 runs in their only win since the break in Monday's game against the Royals. For the Pirates, something has to change and quickly.

The Pirates called up Pedro Florimon for Wednesday's game but he provided zilch. In fact, Florimon went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. The bottom line is that the Pirates may be good with a healthy Josh Harrison, Jordy Mercer and even Francisco Cervelli; but they are not healthy right now so a move needs to be made sooner rather than later. When guys like Jaff Decker and Pedro Florimon are in the starting lineup, that is not going to win a team many games. No disrespect to those guys but they have shown nothing to impress and did not contribute Wednesday. One thing that is a head scratcher is, why wasn't Pedro Alvarez not in the game on Wednesday? Alvarez is struggling as of late, but he still has the potential to put up runs with one swing of the bat. When struggling to score runs, it cannot hurt to just keep playing a guy like that and hope he comes through with a big hit.

BIG PICTURE: The loss to the Royals on Wednesday moves the Pirates to six games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for first place in the NL Central division. The Pirates are in a tailspin right now and are in danger of losing hope of catching the Cardinals this year for the division crown. For a team that ended the unofficial first half of the season on such a high note, the Pirates are having a second half to forget so far.

The Pirates will be able to return home and enjoy the friendly sight of PNC Park on Thursday as they will welcome the Washington Nationals to Pittsburgh for a four-game series. The Pirates will head back on the road after the weekend series, but for the Pirates sake, hopefully they can start winning some more games and get some confidence to get the ball rolling in the second half.