PITTSBURGH -- The Pirates’ end result on Wednesday night, an 11-1 defeat against the Nationals, fell right in line with everything that’s happened in the second half.

They didn’t hit nearly enough or pitch nearly well enough, and they lost for the 29th time in 37 games since the All-Star break. The night ended with infielder Jose Osuna pitching at PNC Park for the second time in a month.

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The Bucs have won consecutive games only once since they went into the break with a 44-45 record and a little positive momentum.

“It sucks. There’s not really much you can say about it,” starter Joe Musgrove said. “We’re doing everything we can to come out of it. Guys are preparing the right way. We’re just not getting the results that we want.”

Here are three takeaways from another frustrating night for the Pirates, who fell 22 games under .500 (52-74) after their seventh double-digit defeat of the season.

The lineup has gone quiet

From May 1 until the All-Star break, the Pirates averaged 5.5 runs per game, while slashing .287/.340/.465 as a team over a 62-game stretch. Since then? They’re averaging 3.9 runs per game in the second half and slashing just .240/.303/.381 with a .684 OPS that ranks third worst in the Majors.

It’s been even worse lately.

The Bucs have scored just six runs in the last five games. They haven’t scored a run before the eighth inning of a game since Friday. Nats lefty Patrick Corbin held the Pirates to three singles and two walks over eight innings on Wednesday.

“We couldn’t get the ball in the air. Just throttled us,” manager Clint Hurdle said of Corbin. “On and off, forward and back, enough fastballs up. Just a really solid mix of pitches. We didn’t have any answer.”

In the ninth inning, Josh Bell recorded his 37th double and 99th RBI of the season to put the Bucs on the board against Nationals reliever Tanner Rainey.

Pittsburgh did a lot of its best work in the first half against opposing starters, beating them up or wearing them down. The Pirates have run into some tough pitchers lately, from Jon Lester and Jose Quintana to Stephen Strasburg and Corbin, but that’s not the whole story.

“They’re big league pitchers that are all pitching well right now. Offensively, we haven’t been able to connect the dots,” Hurdle said. “We haven’t been able to take advantage of little windows of opportunity to try to make them bigger opportunities.”

Oh, and Max Scherzer is expected to come off the injured list to face the Bucs in Thursday’s series finale.

It was one bad inning for Musgrove

Coming off an excellent start against the Cubs on Friday in which he struck out nine batters in 7 1/3 innings, Musgrove said he was pitching without his best stuff from the start against Washington.

“I felt like I was working with half the weapons,” Musgrove said.

The wheels didn’t come off until the third, an uncharacteristic inning for a pitcher who has typically avoided walks, fielded his position well and kept the ball in the park.

Musgrove walked leadoff man Yan Gomes then, after fielding a Corbin comebacker, lost his footing and fired the ball into center field. Gomes was caught in a rundown and tagged out, but Adam Eaton made Musgrove pay for the free baserunners with an RBI double. Anthony Rendon followed with a two-run single to center.

Then Musgrove issued his second walk of the inning -- more than he has totaled in 16 of his appearances this season -- to Juan Soto. Asdrubal Cabrera then blasted Musgrove’s full-count sinker out to center field. He put up two more zeroes after that, but the third inning left a bad taste in his mouth.

“That homer was the most painful pitch of the night,” Musgrove said. “It was one of those nights where I didn’t have my stuff, and I was battling the best I could.”

Big-picture questions are coming

When a team struggles this much for this long, it can sometimes cost people their jobs. General manager Neal Huntington recently acknowledged that the Pirates’ second-half performance isn’t acceptable by saying, “We recognize that changes are needed,” though he also warned against knee-jerk reactions.

Is Hurdle worried there might be a change in the manager’s office? He was asked after Wednesday’s loss.

“My focus is on doing my job, not if my job’s in jeopardy. It never has been since I’ve had an opportunity to be a manager,” Hurdle said. “Those are decisions that other people make. So, [I’m] 62 years old, man. I’m going to manage as long as people have me manage, and if they don’t have me manage, I go home. My job is to do everything I can to get this club to play better baseball, to finish games, to execute better.”

Bell defended Hurdle, saying the Bucs “all fight for him. We all have his back.” Musgrove also deflected the blame away from Hurdle and toward the players.

“A lot of pressure goes back on him when we’re not doing our job, and that’s not necessarily fair to him. We’ve just got to play better as a team,” Musgrove said. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to do better. We’re not scoring very much. We’re not pitching very well. We’re getting spurts of it. I think good teams are able to do that consistently throughout the course of a season. We just haven’t really done that.

“You’ve got to stay positive. You’ve got to be able to have a short memory and put this stuff behind you and get ready for the next day.”