ST. PETERSBURG -- The Pirates aren’t hitting the panic button. They’re one of four teams with at least 20 wins. They still lead the National League Central. After running into the best team in baseball and falling short in three straight games, they understand that they can’t stagnate.

With a 3-2 loss to the Rays -- the powerhouse of baseball that has won 26 of its first 32 games -- on Thursday at Tropicana Field, the Pirates were dealt their first sweep of the season.

“I don’t think much changes, but it’s just a little bit of a wakeup call,” said right fielder Connor Joe. “We know we’re a good team and we still are a good team. But there’s work to be done."

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Added left fielder Bryan Reynolds, “I don’t think there’s any panic going on. It’s just kind of how baseball goes, the ebbs and flows of it. We just have to get back to our kind of baseball -- work the counts, get on base, steal, timely hitting, that kind of stuff."

Over the past three games, as Reynolds mentioned, the Pirates deviated from the brand of baseball that made them the NL’s best team through April.

Pittsburgh played clean baseball on Thursday, but its losses on Tuesday and Wednesday were defined by miscues. On Tuesday, a towering fly ball off the bat of Jose Siri fell for a single when center fielder Jack Suwinski was unable to track it down due to the lights and the roof. Two batters later, Wander Franco drove in a run to give the Rays the lead. On Wednesday, errors by shortstop Rodolfo Castro and second baseman Ji Hwan Bae paved the way for four unearned runs.

While the Pirates gave the Rays extra opportunities on defense, they struggled to take advantage of theirs on offense. 

Entering this series, the Pirates had a .311 batting average with runners in scoring position on the season, behind the Rangers (.346) and Rays (.319). In the first two games of the series, by contrast, Pittsburgh went hitless in 17 at-bats with runners in scoring position. The team's first such hit didn't come until the ninth inning of Thursday's contest, when Carlos Santana drove in two runs with a double.

There was also an element of misfortune, as the Pirates were on the wrong side of several calls throughout the series. 

On Tuesday, the umpiring crew didn't catch the Rays' Ryan Thompson committing a balk with runners on second and third with one out in a two-run game. Had the balk been called, the Pirates would have cut their deficit to one run with the tying run on third base. The inning ended without Pittsburgh scoring. On Wednesday, manager Derek Shelton was ejected due to a disagreement about how the pitch timer was run. On Thursday, several Pirates had disagreements with the strike zone.

“I think it’s one we shower off, recap it, go over some stuff that we can learn from and take positives from it,” Joe said. “I don’t think it’s something that we dwell on and get us down for the rest of the week or whatnot. We definitely need to learn from it and take some things that we could do better. I think that’s what good teams do, and we’re a good team. We’ll take some learning moments from the series. We’ll take the positives and things we did really well and keep building. We have a lot of work to do, and we know that.”

Along with the sweep, the health of Vince Velasquez is up in the air after the right-hander left the game following three innings of one-run ball due to right elbow discomfort. During the third inning, Velasquez could be seen grabbing at the elbow between at-bats. Along with the discomfort, Velasquez’s fastball velocity dipped toward the end of his outing. Velasquez entered play with an average fastball velocity of 93.3 mph, but his last three of the afternoon clocked in at 92, 91.9 and 91 mph.

“There was a pitch where I felt a little discomfort,” Velasquez said. “I kind of lost velocity throughout the third. I knew I had to mention something. I could’ve kept going, but it was uncomfortable at the end.”

Now, the Pirates return to Pittsburgh, where they’ll take on a pair of tough opponents in the Blue Jays and Rangers, who are at or near the top of their divisions. This team has shown a propensity for bouncing back thus far, and after a tough trip to Florida, it will have to bounce back once again.