Wearing Hawaiian shirts as they headed out for a cross-country flight, the Pittsburgh Pirates insisted that a record 19th consecutive losing season was a year of progress.

“This isn’t anything like before,” losing pitcher Charlie Morton said after Wednesday’s 3-2 defeat to St. Louis clinched another sub-.500 record. “The atmosphere is totally different. We were in contention for a good while. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.”

Yadier Molina hit a tiebreaking, two-run double in the fourth for the Cardinals.

A year after going a big league-worst 57-105, the Pirates were 51-44 and led the NL Central by a half-game before play on July 20. But they have gone 16-38 since, leaving them at 67-82.

“Our how-to is going to have to get better, because we’ve got to get this organization to the point where we’re no longer talking about consecutive losing seasons,” said first-year manager Clint Hurdle, who planned the Hawaiian shirts in advance.

When the Pirates last had a winning season, Barry Bonds led them to Game 7 of the NL championship series. At times this year, it seemed like the Pirates finally were on their way to a winning season.

“They compete,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “Clint and his coaching staff have done a really good job of getting their players to play hard for nine innings. They’ve played us tough and everybody else, too.”

St. Louis, which has 13 games left, has won seven of eight and remained 4½ games behind Atlanta in the NL wild-card race. The Cardinals began the day 6½ games back of Milwaukee in the NL Central.

Edwin Jackson (5-2) allowed two runs and eight hits in 7 1/3 innings and improved to 4-0 in his career against Pittsburgh. Three relievers combined to hold Pittsburgh scoreless over the final 2 1/3 innings. Jason Motte pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save in 10 chances.

“Anytime you can get a quality start and the team wins, it’s a good day,” Jackson said. “It’s a game we really needed. We can’t afford to lose a series.”

Morton (9-10) lost his fourth straight start, giving up three runs, six hits and three walks in seven innings.

With the score 1-1 in the fourth, Molina doubled off Charlie Morton (9-10), a drive off the out-of-town scoreboard in right field.

“I was just looking to drive in a run in that situation,” Molina said. “He likes to pitch me on the outside part of the plate and I got a pitch up and away that I could drive.”

Derrek Lee, who went 3 for 3, pulled the Pirates within a run when he hit an RBI double in the sixth.

Rafael Furcal hit a double on the game’s first pitch and scored on Allen Craig’s two-out double.

Pittsburgh tied it in the second in the third when Michael McKerny led off with a double and Alex Presley doubled him home with one out.

— Associated Press —

Not even a shaky defensive performance by Albert Pujols could cool the red-hot St. Louis Cardinals.

Nick Punto hit a go-ahead double in the ninth inning and the surging Cardinals overcame three errors by their superstar first baseman to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 Tuesday night.

Trying to stay in the wild card and NL Central races, the Cardinals won for the sixth time in seven games.

“We still got a huge hole to climb out of, but at least we’re playing some meaningful baseball in September,” Punto said.

The loss dropped the Pirates to 67-81. Once in the midst of a promising run, they are stuck with a non-winning season for the 19th straight year. Pittsburgh is just 16-37 since briefly moving into first place on July 19.

“We haven’t done enough things in a number of these games that have put us in position to have 81 losses, that’s where we are right now,” manager Clint Hurdle said.

Working on the day he signed a $21 million, two-year contract, Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter hit an early two-run single. He took a 4-2 lead into the seventh, but Andrew McCutchen tied it with a two-out homer.

“I was battling all night but I made some good pitches when I had to,” Carpenter said. “It was one of those nights … but it wasn’t like they were bashing it all over the place. But we did what we needed to do, and that’s what’s important right now.”

The Pirates brought in closer Joel Hanrahan (0-4) in the ninth inning of a tie game, and he struggled with his command. Daniel Descalso collected his third single with one out and was replaced by Tyler Greene.

Punto has struggled with injuries this year but looked just fine drilling a Hanrahan fastball into the gap and Greene scored easily. Pujols provided some insurance with a sacrifice fly to take some of the sting out of his woeful night in the field. The two-time Gold Glove winner now has 14 errors this season.

“When you play this game, crazy things are going to happen,” Pujols said. “At the end I just flip the page and I’m glad we got the win and those three errors didn’t cause a loss.”

The Pirates put runners on first and second with no outs in the ninth, but Pedro Ciriaco bunted into a forceout and Neil Walker grounded into a double play to end it.

Kyle McClellan (11-6) earned the win in relief and Jason Motte worked the ninth for his sixth save.

Carpenter, now signed to stay with St. Louis through 2013, allowed 10 hits, struck out six and walked one. The 36-year-old right-hander appeared well on his way to his 10th victory of the season until McCutchen hit his 23rd homer, snapping out of a 1-for-15 slump.

“I had good stuff tonight,” Carpenter said. “I felt like I did the best I could and I got beat by one pitch late in the game.”

Pittsburgh, which rallied for a dramatic 6-5 win on Monday, couldn’t finish the job this time as the Cardinals kept their flickering playoff hopes alive.

“It was a good, gutty hang-in-there type of win, especially after yesterday,” manager Tony La Russa said. “You get your heart broken, which means it wasn’t broken, it was just bruised a little bit.”

Heartbreak is an all-too familiar feeling in Pittsburgh and some baserunning gaffes helped continue the team’s late-summer swoon.

The Pirates lost an apparent run in the fifth after Ciriaco tagged up on a fly by Derrek Lee. Carpenter threw the ball to third and Ciriaco was called out on appeal for leaving too early.

Hurdle came out to argue before heading back to the dugout, then took up the cause a half-inning later and was promptly ejected for the fifth time this season.

“I couldn’t let Pedro wear it,” Hurdle said. “Everybody in the ballpark thinks he left early and that’s not normal protocol to go in there after that but I had someone I trust tell me ‘No, he left right on time’ and I just can’t let the kid wear it. I’ve got to have his back.”

Lee singled and scored on Pujols’ error in the second, and hit a solo home run in the third. Still, it wasn’t enough to prevent the Pirates from coming within one loss of yet another losing season.

“I made three mistakes, three errors, and they made some mistakes running the bases,” Pujols said. “It happens. It’s part of the game.”

— Associated Press —