PITTSBURGH — By nature, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle doesn’t waste time thinking about the things his team lacks.

So he’s not going to get worked up about the dearth of home-run power in a lineup littered with good hitters unlikely to test the outer reaches of PNC Park. Hurdle likes his club’s approach at the plate and can point to its healthy .295 batting average as proof.

Hurdle just isn’t thrilled with the way all those hits struggle to translate into crooked numbers on the scoreboard. Pittsburgh pecked at Detroit’s Jordan Zimmerman and three relievers in a 7-4 loss to the Tigers on Thursday, falling for the fifth time in its last six games after going 5 of 16 with runners in scoring position and leaving 12 men on base.

“A couple base hits would have been nice in different situations,” Hurdle said. “I don’t look at what we don’t have. I look at the opportunities we’ve been able to create and are creating. It’s having that finishing at bat at the end, that at bat where you drive in two runs, something along those lines.”

John Jaso and David Freese had three hits each for the Pirates but Pittsburgh left the bases loaded in the first and fifth innings off Zimmermann (2-0) and saw a potential rally in the eighth come to an abrupt halt when Jaso was thrown out at home trying to score on a double by Andrew McCutchen.

“It wasn’t poor baserunning,” Hurdle said. “Want to make that clear. It wasn’t poor baserunning. It was a decision that didn’t go right at the end of the play.”

Jaso didn’t mind the call from third base coach Rick Sofield.

“We are an aggressive team,” Jaso said. “If anything, it is planting that inside of opponent’s heads.”

Gerrit Cole threw six strong innings in his second start of the season. Five days after a jagged 2016 debut against Cincinnati, Cole struck out five and walked one while giving up two runs, both coming following a mix-up with Jaso in the fourth. Justin Upton was on first with two outs and the count full to J.D. Martinez.

Cole attempted to pick Upton off first but Jaso was well off the bag. The throw sailed to the wall and Upton raced to third. Martinez eventually walked and Nick Castellanos followed with a two-run double that gave the Tigers the lead.