Just six pitches into tonight -- when Mets leadoff hitter Jose Reyes reversed the direction of a thigh-high fastball, planting it into the left field seats -- there was a hint the struggles of Pirates pitcher Zach Duke would continue.

The hint quickly transformed into a horrifying reality, as Duke dug his team a four-run hole after the second inning and the Pirates fell, 7-4, against the visiting Mets at PNC Park.

It was Duke's seventh consecutive loss, dropping his record to 4-11.

He threw 47 pitches in the first two innings, and his night ended after he threw six innings, yielding six runs. All of them were earned.

The left-hander hasn't won since June 9, and it was glaringly evident he wasn't going to snap the streak tonight, or prevent the Pirates from their sixth loss in their past eight games.

Trailing, 7-1, heading into their final at-bat, the Pirates rallied, but the previous damage the Mets had done proved insurmountable. The Pirates got a ninth-inning Jack Wilson RBI double and an Eddie Kunz wild pitch that allowed Steve Pearce to race home to make it 7-3. A Nate McLouth RBI single chased Wilson home to put the Pirates behind, 7-4.

Ryan Doumit served as the tying run with one out, and against Mets reliever Pedro Feliciano he flied out to left before Adam LaRoche grounded out to end it.

The late-game rally, however exciting, could not offset the early damage inflicted by the Mets.

After Reyes advanced the National League East leading club to the 1-0 advantage, the Mets went on to score two more runs in the first on and RBI double by Carlos Beltran and an RBI single by Fernando Tatis.

It was 3-0 before the Pirates had so much as a chance to take a swing, and the Mets tacked another one on the second time they came to the plate.

In the top of the second, Reyes, the National League hit leader with 160, struck again. This time he followed up a single by Mets pitcher Pedro Martinez with a triple off the base of the center field wall to push the Mets' lead to 4-0.

Mets catcher Ramon Castro advanced that lead in the sixth.

When Duke gave up a two-run home run to Castro that traversed over the left centerfield wall and cleared the fence in the deepest part of the park, the Pirates pitcher elicited more than just a small smattering of boos from the sellout crowd of 37,506.

While Duke struggled mightily, Martinez took the game by the scruff of its neck, routinely working ahead in the count and changing speeds masterfully through the first six innings before hitting a speed bump in the seventh.

In that seventh, Pirates third baseman Andy LaRoche homered on the first pitch of the inning, a Martinez curveball that hung up in the zone, to make it 6-1.

But it was as much of a charge as the Pirates would put into Martinez. The three time Cy Young Award winner pitched efficiently, throwing 95 pitches -- 64 for strikes -- in his seven innings of work, giving up eight hits and just the one run on LaRoche's homer.

The Mets scored their final run in the eight, when Pirates reliever Romulo Sanchez issued a bases-loaded walk to pinch hitter Daniel Murphy.