Matt Harvey entered Saturday's start in Pittsburgh having tossed 16 scoreless innings before things took a turn for the worst.
The New York Mets ace endured the worst outing of his professional career against the Pirates, yielding a career-high seven runs on six hits over four innings of work - the shortest outing of his career.
Andrew McCutchen inspired the Pirates assault on the Dark Knight, blasting a two-run homer in the first inning. Pedro Alvarez followed suit in the second inning with a solo blast, and then Pittsburgh piled on four more runs in the fourth inning. Mets manager Terry Collins had seen enough, and elected to pinch hit for Harvey in the top of the fifth.
Harvey had previously never given up more than five runs in a major league game, and saw his ERA rise from 1.98 to 2.91 with the lackluster effort.
The right-hander was on fire in May, allowing only three earned runs in 28 innings pitched with 25 strikeouts entering the start.
Harvey fell to 5-2 on the campaign with the 8-2 loss.