Three times on Friday night, Derek Holland was one pitch away from escaping an inning with no damage done by the Brewers’ lineup. The veteran left-hander had two outs and two strikes on the board in the third inning, again in the fourth and once more in the fifth, but Milwaukee hit him hard before he could make the pitch he needed.

Despite striking out a season-high eight batters, Holland gave up eight runs and three homers in five innings, and the Pirates went down quietly in a 9-1 loss to the Brewers in the opener of a four-game series at Miller Park. All players wore No. 42 as the teams and all of Major League Baseball celebrated Jackie Robinson Day on Friday.

• Box score

“It’s something that’s going to bother me. We were right there. This is what we’ve been working for,” Holland said. “We’ve been practicing this the whole time, putting guys away. Today was just one of those days where you got there and all of a sudden you couldn’t finish it. You weren’t getting the results that you wanted.”

Brewers right-hander Corbin Burnes struck out 10 and walked only one while allowing three hits in six innings. The Pirates scored their only run in the seventh, when JT Riddle homered to right off reliever David Phelps. It was just the Bucs’ second extra-base hit since Sunday.

Meanwhile, Holland became the fourth Pirates pitcher since 1900 to strike out at least eight while allowing at least eight runs in a game. The other three were Vic Willis in 1906, Josh Fogg in 2002 and Mitch Keller exactly one year ago.

You can look at Holland’s five-inning, 100-pitch outing through two different lenses. On one hand, he executed a lot of pitches and fell only a few short of a much more impressive final line. But ultimately, the results don’t lie. And in a shortened season, especially with the Trade Deadline looming on Monday, every pitch matters.

The Pirates found a deal on Friday for one veteran with an expiring contract, sending outfielder Jarrod Dyson to the White Sox in exchange for additional international spending capacity. General manager Ben Cherington is expected to be active in seeking deals as he looks to bolster Pittsburgh’s farm system. Will he find a match for Holland before 4 p.m. ET on Monday?

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If this was a showcase start, even Holland wasn’t sure interested teams saw a starter.

“If I was auditioning, I’m going to be a bullpen piece, if anything. Those aren’t the things I’m worried about,” Holland said. “I’m worried about being here with my teammates, being here to help these guys, guide them, help them.”

But plenty of contenders will have a need for pitching depth, whether it’s in the rotation or out of the bullpen. Holland has experience in both roles. On the bright side, he has racked up 31 strikeouts while walking only 13 batters in 28 1/3 innings this season. He has pitched at least five innings in every start he’s made.

But Holland has given up 10 home runs, tied for the most in the Majors, and his ERA climbed to 7.62 after Friday’s outing. Entering this start, opponents owned an average exit velocity of 93.3 mph and a 52.2% hard-hit rate against him, which ranked in the bottom 2 percent of the league.

Afterward, Holland was more focused on his most recent performance than when or where the next one might take place.

“We can’t worry about those things. If you start doing that, then that’s when the distraction starts becoming something else instead of doing what you should be doing on the field,” Holland said. “I want to try to be the best that I can be to try and help these guys and do my job. Unfortunately, today was not the case. It was a big letdown today.”

Holland struck out seven of the first 12 hitters he faced, with a solo homer by Jedd Gyorko in the first inning the only mark against him during that stretch. The fastball Gyorko hit out, Holland said afterward, was the only pitch “that really was bad.” But Milwaukee bashed some pitches Holland liked, too.

After hitting Jacob Nottingham in the foot and giving up a double to Luis Urías, Holland stood on the mound in the third with two outs and Ryan Braun at the plate. But Braun wouldn’t go away, launching a low, full-count fastball out to left field for a three-run homer that made it a 4-0 game.

“We were a strike away from zero runs there and a 1-0 game continues,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. “That was the at-bat of the game. It was a good at-bat by Ryan. [Holland] fell behind 3-0, and I thought Ryan was very disciplined in getting what he wanted. Fouled off a couple of pitches, and Holland made a mistake."

Holland recorded two quick outs in the fourth, walked Ben Gamel and once again pulled within a pitch of finishing the inning. But Nottingham launched a two-out, two-strike fastball a Statcast-projected 436 feet out to left-center for a two-run homer. Again, Holland said the fastball he threw was low -- where the scouting report said it should go -- but Nottingham got to it with a powerful swing.

Keston Hiura drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and Avisaíl García worked a free pass with two outs, bringing up Mark Mathias. Stop us if you’ve heard this one before, but Holland ran the count full -- and might have gotten out of the inning, if Jacob Stallings could have hung on to a foul tip -- before Mathias ripped a two-run double to left.

“That’s what’s frustrating the most is I hurt our guys by giving up these runs with two outs, not giving our team a chance to win by any means,” Holland said. “That’s what’s frustrating as a pitcher.”