Pitcher Matt Morris, gave up eight earned runs in four innings Monday as the Pirates lost to the Florida Marlins 10-4.

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Pirates are paying Matt Morris $10 million to anchor their starting rotation, or nearly half of Florida's $22 million payroll. So far, the Marlins are getting a much bigger payoff for their bucks than the Pirates are.

Hanley Ramirez, Josh Willingham and Dan Uggla homered and Marlins pitcher Mark Hendrickson, normally one of the majors' worst hitters, had two hits while pitching eight innings of Florida's 10-4 victory over the slumping Pirates on Monday night.

Ramirez, a .457 career hitter in PNC Park, hit a two-run homer during a four-run second inning against Morris (0-3), giving him three homers in two games. Willingham added a two-run drive as Florida scored three more times in the third to make it 7-2.

Uggla hit a solo homer and had three of Florida's 11 extra-base hits. In all the Marlins had 16 hits, and all nine Marlins starters got at least one of them.

The Pirates, coming off a miserable road trip in which they were outscored 52-18 while losing five of six to the Dodgers and Cubs, lost their sixth in a row and gave up double-digit runs for the third consecutive game. They hadn't done that since Montreal scored a combined 35 runs during a three-game sweep in June 1994.

Pittsburgh has given up 10 or more runs four times during its six-game losing streak, including 36 runs the last three games. They lost to the Cubs 13-1 on Saturday and 13-6 on Sunday.

Pirates manager John Russell said constantly falling behind by big margins is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on his own hitters.

"It's tough when you look up after two or three innings and the opposing team has put up eight runs. It's hard," Russell said. "It shuts down a lot of the things you can do as an offensive club."

Especially when the starting pitcher is shutting no one down.

Morris said he felt excellent between starts, had productive sessions with pitching coach Jeff Andrews and the ballclub held a pregame meeting in which Russell said "all the right things."

"I had a lot of faith in today," said Morris, who constantly fell behind in the count and had inconsistent velocity — sometimes throwing his fastball in the mid-80 mph range. "I had a lot of positive thoughts. To get out on the rubber and have one of the worst games I've ever pitched ..."