PHOENIX -- The Pirates put on a wonderful display on the bases in Thursday afternoon’s fourth inning. They executed a double steal, successfully escaped a rundown and pushed across a trio of runs in the process.

But that one excellent showing of small ball wasn’t nearly enough to fend off the D-backs’ late rally of big bops.

Pittsburgh’s strong, clean performance in the series finale at Chase Field was derailed when its bullpen couldn’t preserve a one-run lead. Arizona struck for seven runs in the seventh to hand the Bucs a 9-3 defeat and a series loss in the desert.

“The game kind of got away from us pretty quick there,” manager Derek Shelton said.

However, the Pirates showed over the final two contests of this four-game set that they’re capable of excelling on the basepaths. In fact, they recorded three stolen bases on Wednesday and four more on Thursday, marking the first time since July 5-6, 2013, that they swiped three bags in consecutive games, according to STATS, LLC.

Pittsburgh pulled off several impressive plays in its three-run fourth:

• The young duo of Ke’Bryan Hayes and Oneil Cruz executed a double steal, giving the Pirates runners on second and third with no outs.

• When Tucupita Marcano hit a one-out grounder to D-backs first baseman Christian Walker, Hayes hustled home and beat the throw to score the game’s first run. (It was a close play -- Hayes may have initially slid over the plate without touching it, but there wasn’t enough evidence for a replay review to overturn the call.)

• Marcano scored from first on a Greg Allen single to center field. As Allen got trapped between first and second, Marcano scurried the final 90 feet from third to home. And Allen ended up safe back at first, too, escaping the D-backs’ rundown when nobody covered the bag at first.

“We scored because we ran the bases really well, we paid attention,” Shelton said. “Marcano made a really nice read going there, and then [Allen] did a nice job when Walker vacated [first]. So we ran the bases really well, it’s just after that we couldn’t get much going.”

That’s the style of play the Pirates may need to continue to utilize to help jolt their scuffling offense down the stretch. They rank last in the National League in runs scored (405), batting average (.220) and OPS (.650). But if they can keep running the bases this well and stringing positive plays together, they could start to see some improvement.

It didn’t happen again after the fourth, though, as the Bucs had only two more hits (both singles) and the D-backs retired the final seven Pirates batters. It was the fifth time during the first seven games of this road trip that Pittsburgh has been held to four or fewer runs, and it lost each of those instances.

In the seventh, right-handers Chase De Jong (three runs allowed on three hits) and Yerry De Los Santos (four runs allowed on two hits and three walks without recording an out) both struggled. Arizona broke the game open on Daulton Varsho’s three-run double off De Los Santos that pushed its lead to 8-3.

Having dropped three of four to the D-backs, the Pirates have lost five of six series to open the second half, going 6-13 over that span.

"Losing sucks,” De Jong said. “We played pretty well. We were in a lot of games. It comes down to small execution of details. For me today, I didn't get swing-and-miss. If I'm going to throw late in the game, in close games, I need to do better. I need to strike guys out and stay off the barrel and miss bats. And today, I wasn't good enough to do that. They put balls in play and things went their way. It's baseball."