Peter Diana, Post-Gazette Freddy Sanchez slides safely into home after Zach Duke's infield single in the first inning last night at PNC Park.

Three streaks ended for the Pirates last night, and they were delighted by two of those.

Zach Duke's personal losing skid ended at four, as his 7 2/3 steady innings contributed to the 14-3 clobbering of the Milwaukee Brewers before 17,561 at PNC Park.

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That, of course, was a positive.

Sean Casey's string of games missed to a fractured back was snapped at 38, and he responded with three hits and three RBIs in his return.

That, too, was welcome.

But the roll that had begun to draw national attention, Jason Bay's homering in six consecutive games, ended with a hush after he singled in five at-bats.

That left him two short of matching Major League Baseball's record.

"Obviously, it was fun while it lasted," Bay said. "Don't get me wrong: I knew it was going to come to an end. I'm just glad it came to an end on a night when everybody else was hitting the way they did."

Bay's batting style does not lend itself to swinging for the fences, but he admitted that is precisely what he was doing -- with the exception of that sixth-inning single -- under the burden of the streak. As a result, no doubt, he had a strikeout, two groundouts and a lazy flyout to center.

"It will be nice not to think about it, to be honest," Bay said.

The Pirates have won three of four for only the second time all season, and they have done so with a revived offense that registered season highs for the run count and the 18 hits. In these four games, they have 38 runs, including 10 home runs.

Before the game, manager Jim Tracy explained that he would place Casey -- in his first game since two vertebrae were cracked in an April 14 collision -- back at his usual No. 3 spot in the order and bump Freddy Sanchez down to sixth with expectations that it would make the Pirates' order deeper.

He pointed to that element first in his postgame comments.

"It's pretty nice to have that extra bat in the lineup," Tracy said. "Adding Sean Casey and the opportunity to lengthen the lineup played itself out tonight."

"It's contagious right now," center fielder Jose Bautista said after he and Jose Castillo each went deep last night. "When you're seeing everybody take a good approach up there, it takes the pressure off you. You're more picky at the plate. You wait for you pitch, then you drive it."

Bautista continued to make his case to become a starter with his second home run in as many days, a laser into the left-field bleachers to lead off the sixth. It was his fourth long ball in 14 games since his promotion from Class AAA Indianapolis, and he also singled, doubled, walked and scored three runs out of the leadoff spot.

"I don't think I ever really have felt uncomfortable here," Bautista said.

Castillo's home run, a two-run shot to center in the eighth, was his fifth.

The Brewers scored twice off Duke in the first, including doubles by Rickie Weeks and Prince Fielder, and it appeared the Pirates' wunderkind of 2005 was on his way to another rough outing. He had lost each of his four previous starts to fall to 2-6, most losses in the National League.

But Duke's teammates provided a chance to regroup by storming Milwaukee starter Doug Davis in the bottom half to take a 5-2 lead.

Bautista walked, Jack Wilson reached on a bunt single, and Casey lined an RBI single to center in his first at-bat in nearly six weeks.

"At this stage of my career, I know what it takes to have a good at-bat," Casey said. "I just went up there thinking about doing that, and how it played out was just fine."

He smiled.

"What a feeling."

Craig Wilson and Sanchez followed with singles, Ronny Paulino drew a bases-loaded walk, and Duke brought in the fifth run with an infield single.

Davis would be chased after three-plus innings, eight runs and 11 hits, while Duke would allow one more run after that first inning.

His total of 10 hits was not pretty, and he could not have enjoyed it when Fielder bounced a ball into the Allegheny River in the sixth inning, a 471-foot home run that was third-longest in PNC Park history. But he hardly was complaining.

"I'm starting to figure it out," Duke said. "I didn't have one of those bad innings that had been bugging me, and I threw a lot of strikes. For me, that's always the key."

He fanned five, walked one and threw 72 of 110 pitches for strikes.

"But I've got to give credit to the guys here," Duke added. "They came out and scored all those runs in the bottom of the first, and that changed everything."