Oh, the magic that is September baseball in Pittsburgh.

The Pirates' 6-1 loss to Milwaukee last night at PNC Park, brought by another bumpy outing for Bryan Bullington, marked the 81st loss of 2007. One more will clinch a 15th consecutive losing season, and that could come today in the matinee series finale against the Brewers.

Bring your own cake.

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Today

• Game: Pirates (LHP Tom Gorzelanny 14-7, 3.48) vs. Milwaukee Brewers (RHP Dave Bush 11-10, 5.25), 12:35 p.m., PNC Park.
• Radio: WPGB-FM (104.7).
• Key matchup: Freddy Sanchez is 6 for 11 vs. Bush, with two doubles and four RBIs.
• Of note: Gorzelanny can become the Pirates' first pitcher with 15 victories since Todd Ritchie in 1999. No one has had more than that since John Smiley's 20 in 1991.

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Dusting off the historical impact therein ...

The Pirates' streak would be one year shy of Major League Baseball's record of 16, set by the 1933-48 Philadelphia Phillies.

It would match the longest in any of the other three major professional sports. The NBA's Kansas City/Sacramento Kings of 1983-98 and NHL's Vancouver Canucks of 1976-91 each went 15. The NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers of 1983-96 went 14.

No other ongoing streak in sports comes close, the Baltimore Orioles now up to 10.

No need to conduct research, though. All anyone needed to confirm the state of the franchise was the sparse, stone-silent crowd of 11,962, who might as well have been attending a funeral.

When will the scene change?

"I don't think it's going to happen again after this year," reliever Salomon Torres said of losing 82. "Management seems like it's resolved not to prolong this streak of 15 years, and maybe that's one reason there is a light at the end of the tunnel. The critics can say that light is very dim. But the way we've been playing the past few weeks, it should give everybody hope. We have the core here. It's in management's hands, how far they want to take this."

Third baseman Jose Bautista sounded a similar note.

"Nobody wants this day to come," he said. "It's up to us as players, I think, to put in our best efforts in the offseason and work hard so this doesn't happen again. We've got to execute early better in the season next year, keep improving and, hopefully, get a key addition here and there"

The Brewers, the Pirates' brethren in losing not too long ago, made just about all of the noise in the stadium last night with their bats.

Bullington limited Milwaukee to a 1-0 lead through five innings, that when Prince Fielder lined a curveball into the center-field seats in the fourth. But he was fooling almost no one: Balls were stung all about the field, and only two double plays and some good fortune -- five screamers right at gloves -- minimized the damage.

Still, it represented a mild improvement over his starting debut last week in St. Louis, when he was chased by five runs in three innings.

"A much more confident performance," manager Jim Tracy called it.

"There were good things and bad things," Bullington said. "I missed some locations, like the pitch to Fielder, and I caught too much of the plate with fastballs at times."

A lack of stuff was obvious, too: The Brewers swung and missed at three of his 67 pitches.

That came to roost in the sixth when Rickie Weeks walked, stole second and scored on Gabe Gross' ground-rule double. Ryan Braun singled, and it was 3-0.

John Grabow relieved and drew a double play, but Corey Hart homered to left with the next at-bat.

Torres, freshly off the disabled list, gave up two more in the seventh.

The offense, meanwhile, made not a peep for a change.

Yovani Gallardo, Milwaukee's 21-year-old rookie, pitched six shutout innings while striking out seven. He worked out of jams in the fifth and sixth, striking out Nate McLouth and Freddy Sanchez to end the latter.

"Give him credit. He's very solid," Tracy said of Gallardo. "He threw four pitches and threw them all for strikes."

By the time McLouth doubled in the Pirates' lone run in the seventh, half the crowd was gone.

By the final out, no more than 1,000 remained.

Within 15 minutes, only the janitors remained, and the decibel level of their cleaning machines topped that of the game.