Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Tom Gorzelanny flips the ball in frustration after giving up a three-run home run to Gerald Laird in the seventh inning last night at PNC Park. Click photo for larger image. Today Game: Pirates (LHP Paul Maholm 2-9, 5.33) vs. Chicago White Sox (RHP Jon Garland 4-3, 3.42), 7:05 p.m., PNC Park. TV, radio: FSN Pittsburgh, WPGB-FM (104.7). Key matchup: Maholm vs. the strike zone. When he gets two strikes on a batter, the opposition's average is .178. Even with a full count, it is .077. Of note: The White Sox have lost eight of nine and 15 of 18, mostly because of a miserable offense. The team batting average of .232 is lowest in Major League Baseball, with even Jermaine Dye (.226), Paul Konerko (.226) and A.J. Pierzynski (.237) struggling. Related articles Pirates Notebook: Van Benschoten's big day at hand Pirates Q&A with Dejan Kovacevic

Tom Gorzelanny found fault with no one but himself.

He was the one who threw those three gopher balls, the one who walked off the mound with a five-run deficit, and it was he, ultimately, who was tagged with the Pirates' 6-0 loss to the Texas Rangers last night before 17,214 at PNC Park.

"You can't say anything good when you give up three home runs," Gorzelanny said.

There is another way of looking at it, of course: Perhaps his teammates, once again, could have done more to support one of the National League's finest starters this season.

Five times in Gorzelanny's 14 starts, the Pirates have failed to post a plural number on the scoreboard, this marking the second zero among them.

And, on this occasion, it was not how they were shut out, but by whom.

Meet Kameron Loe.

He is a 26-year-old, 6-foot-7 right-hander who has bounced back and forth from the Rangers to the minors the past three years. This year was no exception: He had lost six in a row and was demoted to Class AAA Oklahoma last week, recalled yesterday only because of an injury to Brandon McCarthy.

To look at Loe's numbers -- 1-6 with a 7.40 ERA and a .314 opponents' batting average -- one might have envisioned not only a three-game sweep by the Pirates but also another outburst akin to the 15 runs and 21 hits they banged out in the first two.

Not quite.

Loe pitched eight scoreless innings, giving up five hits while striking out seven, and put together what might be called the finest performance of his career except that it would diminish it through faint praise.

So, was this a twist of a baseball adage in that bad pitching beat bad hitting?

Or did the young man simply have himself a night?

The sentiment expressed universally in both clubhouses was that Loe, somehow, did quite well.

"I find it very hard to believe, based on the type of game he pitched tonight, that all his other outings were similar," Pirates manager Jim Tracy said. "He had a very, very good sinker, and he threw a lot of strikes early in counts."

Indisputable on each count: Loe got 14 ground-ball outs, three fly-ball outs and allowed only eight balls to leave the infield and one extra-base hit, Ryan Doumit's double in the fifth. He also threw 71 of his 108 pitches for strikes.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Jose Castillo flips his bat after grounding out for the second time against Kameron Loe in the seventh inning. Click photo for larger image.

"He was just getting us to beat the ball into the ground," left fielder Jason Bay said. "You've got to tip your cap, regardless of what his record and stats were coming in. He pitched a very good game today."

"I don't know where he got it," first baseman Adam LaRoche said. "But he found it."

Texas manager Ron Washington saw it the same way.

"Kameron pounded that sinker the whole night," he said. "In his other starts, he'd get away from it. Not this time. The ball was put in play early, but he stuck with it."

"This game meant a lot to me," Loe said. "It's not easy when you're struggling."

Loe, unlike Gorzelanny, had a bit of breathing room. And he had it right off the bat, too, when Jerry Hairston Jr. opened the game by lining a 2-1 changeup into the left-field bleachers.

Gorzelanny smoothed himself out in putting up four zeroes after that and giving his offense a chance to dent Loe.

But rookie Travis Metcalf led off the sixth by sending a 1-0 fastball into the base of the left-field rotunda, and the Rangers were ahead, 2-0. It was Metcalf's first major-league hit.

"Tom didn't have his best command, but I thought he did a good job of pitching without his best stuff," Tracy said. "And he did keep us in the game for a while."

Until the seventh, that is.

Michael Young opened with a single off the glove of diving shortstop Jose Castillo and, after a strikeout, Marlon Byrd singled up the middle to bring up light-hitting catcher Gerald Laird, owner of a .245 average and three home runs.

Make that four.

He worked the count full, then got under another elevated fastball to loft it into the bleachers for a 5-0 lead.

Gorzelanny's line -- five runs, seven hits in seven innings -- was surprising not so much because he might be the Pirates' MVP to date, but more so because he had given up only four home runs in his first 85 innings.

Asked if he had to battle more than usual because of wavering command, Gorzelanny replied deftly, "You give up three home runs ... there's no battling in there."

The Pirates, now 28-38, fell to eight games off the pace in the Central Division.

Their picture would have been slightly brighter, of course, if this game had gone according to the pregame pitching lines.

"That's one of those games that, if we're going to get better, we're going to have to find that killer instinct and not just think two out of three is good enough," Bay said. "Especially with Gorzo pitching for us."