Padres hand Pirates 10th straight loss, 7-3

PITTSBURGH – Infielder Brandon Wood was asked if the Pittsburgh Pirates could glean anything positive from their just-completed homestand, one that goes into the books as the worst in 125 years of franchise history.

"Well," Wood said, pondering the team's 10-game losing streak, "this is going to end at some point."

It surely will, but it doesn't feel that way right now for the fading Pirates.

Mat Latos and the San Diego Padres beat Pittsburgh 7-3 Sunday. In less than two weeks, the Pirates have sunk from first place in the NL Central to 10 games behind.

Latos' mastery continued the misery for the Pirates, who completed an 0-7 stay at PNC Park against the last-place Padres and Chicago Cubs, two teams that were a combined 39 games under .500 when the week began.

Pittsburgh was winless on a homestand of at least seven games for the first time in franchise history, STATS LLC said. No team in the majors has had a homestand that long without a win since Kansas City in May 2006.

"It's obviously not easy right now," second baseman Neil Walker said. "As baseball players, we've all gone through some sort of stretch like this, whether it was from a personal or a team standpoint. Nobody likes the feeling that we have right now.

"It's easy to let yourself go to a negative place when you're like this, but ... we're still playing the same game we did when we were winning games. It's just been a little tougher for us."

Try a lot tougher. The Pirates, leading the division on July 26, were outscored 59-25 by the Cubs and Padres. The bad week came after they got swept in Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh will try again to break its skid Monday night at San Francisco against the World Series champion Giants.

A day after the Pirates held a players-only meeting following a 13-2 loss, they trailed 7-0 going into the bottom of the eighth.

The Padres got a run on a wild pitch by Daniel McCutchen and another that was set up by catcher Ryan Doumit's throwing error on a pitchout, two plays that exemplified Pittsburgh's recent futility.

Latos (6-11) allowed only two singles until Doumit and Pedro Alvarez singled to open the eighth. Brandon Wood followed with a home run off Chad Qualls.

Will Venable had three hits and drove in two runs and Logan Forsythe had three RBIs as the Padres completed their third sweep of the season. San Diego has won four in a row.

Playing without top hitter Chase Headley, who sustained a broken left little finger on Saturday, the Padres continued their offensive renaissance at the hands of the beleaguered Pirates.

"We got off to a good start there, and some of their guys didn't have their best stuff," Venable said. "We consistently, throughout the lineup, put good swings on those mistakes and we were able to push some runs across."

San Diego came into the series last in the National League in average, runs, home runs and extra-base hits. The Padres left it having scored 35 runs in three games, tied for the second-most in any three-game stretch in franchise history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

San Diego has never scored more runs in a three-game series.

"Offensively, the three games speak for themselves," Padres manager Bud Black said. "The collection of at bats from top to bottom were outstanding."

This is the Pirates' longest losing streak since a 12-game slide June 6-18, 2010, a season in which they lost 105 games.

The crowd of 35,601 meant a total of 112,618 saw the series, the fourth-largest in PNC Park history. While fans on Friday and Saturday often resorting to booing, Sunday's scene never got ugly. Pirates fans were even given a reason to cheer when Wood's homer, his seventh, cut San Diego's lead to 7-3.

Pittsburgh's Xavier Paul then singled with one out, but Qualls got the Pirates' two best hitters, Andrew McCutchen and Neil Walker, to ground out harmlessly to end the inning.

"We like playing here," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. "We just didn't do well this week.

"I never thought we'd throw up a doughnut at home."

Forsythe, in the lineup to replace Headley at third base, had an RBI groundout in the second against Kevin Correia (12-10) and a two-run single in the sixth. Venable added a two-run double in the eighth.

Signed in the offseason as a free agent from San Diego, Correia had allowed one run on three hits through 5 2-3 innings before running into two-out trouble in the sixth. He was charged with four runs on five hits and four walks, falling to 2-8 at home this season.

"I threw the ball pretty well up until there were two outs and nobody on in the sixth," Correia said. "It's just hard, in the situation we're in and the results of the games, to feel good about anything."

NOTES: Headley was to be evaluated over the next few days before a decision was to be made about a possible trip to the disabled list. ... The Padres improved to 25-17 in day games (they're 26-47 at night) and have won six consecutive series finales. ... Monday in San Francisco, the Pirates face RHP Ryan Vogelsong, who pitched for them from 2001-06 and was out of the majors until this season, when he is emerging as a possible Cy Young candidate. ... Padres RHP Tim Stauffer is making his first career start in New York on Monday.