What has been witnessed over the past month at PNC Park is the worst stretch of baseball the Pirates have played in nearly a century.

Well, almost witnessed.

A paid crowd of 12,566, with slightly more than 4,900 actually passing through the turnstiles, saw the 11-6, 11-inning loss to the San Diego Padres tonight, the 20th loss in the past game 23 games.

Stop and think about that for a moment: That is a .150 winning percentage since Aug. 28, which projects to one win per week, 21 over a full season. It is the worst such mark over a 23-game span since the 1916 team finished on a 3-20-2 free fall. And that group, at least, had Hall of Famers Honus Wagner and Max Carey.

This edition?

Suffice it to say that, while these Pirates compete -- and they surely did by rallying repeatedly tonight, including a ninth-inning tie -- they are falling short at a historical rate.

The Pirates had a golden chance to win in the ninth, down by 6-5. But after bases were loaded with nobody out off San Diego closer Heath Bell, Delwyn Young bounced into a forceout at home, and Ronny Cedeno's fielder's choice grounder was enough for nothing more than the tie. Pinch-hitter Jason Jaramillo rolled out to end the inning.

Another chance came in the 10th, with two aboard and one out for pinch-hitter Neil Walker, but that ended with a 4-6-3 double play.

Battle?

Sure, they did that.

But they lost again, and they did so big-time when San Diego scored five times in the 11th, all charged to struggling Jeff Karstens. The tiebreaking blow came off the bat of Chase Headley, an RBI double that brought a career-best five hits. He also homered and had two other doubles.

The Pirates had sought a lift with the return of three players to the lineup: Garrett Jones was back from a sore right shoulder, Young after a week of back stiffness and Andy LaRoche at the tail end of a flu bug.

"None of them is really 100 percent," Russell said. "But we'd like to get some offense back in the lineup."

Starter Daniel McCutchen again came up short of his first victory, charged with three runs and eight hits over six innings. His bugaboo has been the five home runs allowed in four starts, and he gave up another on Adrian Gonzalez's two-run shot in the first.

Reliever Jesse Chavez, visibly wearing down through the stretch after making a team-high and career-high 69 appearances, gave up home runs to Headley and Nick Hundley, the latter a two-run shot, to put San Diego ahead, 6-2.

The Pirates were 1 for 13 with runners in scoring position, 3 for 32 in the series.

The average crowd at PNC is 19,337, third-lowest in Major League Baseball. Only the Oakland Athletics and Florida Marlins, each playing in multi-sport stadiums they are about to abandon, have drawn fewer.

To avoid 100 losses, the Pirates must go 7-7 the rest of the way, and this hardly looks like a team ready to erupt for a .500 clip.