A.J. after another loss: ‘I’m a human being’

What A.J. Burnett did in the first half of the Pirates’ season was remarkable.

According to Burnett, it’s not repeatable.

He endured his second consecutive shaky outing following the All-Star break and, while he expects to rebound from those performances, he warned to keep expectations tempered following a 9-3 loss to the Nationals Saturday night at PNC Park.

Expecting Burnett to maintain the exceptional numbers that sent him to the All-Star Game, he said, simply isn’t realistic: “I’m a human being. If you expect me to go out and do what I did in the first half, you’re nuts. I’m going to do everything I can, but those were ridiculous numbers. Execution is the answer. In the first half, I executed. In the last two starts, I haven’t.”

Burnett recorded eight strikeouts and didn’t walk a batter, prompting Clint Hurdle to comment that Burnett’s control was good. The pitcher emphatically disagreed.

“No,” he said. “My control was terrible.”

Even when he was recording early strikeouts, Burnett was routinely missing his spots.

Burnett threw a wild pitch that led to a run and hit two batters in the fourth inning. He also threw wildly to first in the first inning and made a couple of mental mistakes, like reaching for a ball that his infielders could have had.

“I’m hitting guys in the foot,” he said. “Throwing balls down the middle. Making bad throws to first. What else? I didn’t cover home.”

In a curious moment, Burnett forgot to cover home in the second when his wild pitch bounced about 15 feet away from Francisco Cervelli. Burnett apparently didn’t think Ian Desmond was going to break for home. But Desmond, after briefly hesitating, did go. Cervelli retrieved the ball and likely would have had time to gun down Desmond, who wasn’t close to home.

Burnett, however, wasn’t close to home on the play.

“You’d like him to be moving in that direction,” Hurdle said.

Those eight strikeouts didn’t particularly impress Burnett, who is seemingly more effective this season when he is pitching to contact. The Nationals, incidentally, have touched him up for 25 hits in two appearances this season.

“I got strikeouts,” he said. “But strikeouts don’t win games. The balls were down the middle. Big league hitters are going to hit those hard.”

He hasn’t been in command since the All-Star break, but Burnett said only a couple of adjustments are necessary to improve his performance:

• Aramis Ramirez went 0 for 4 in his PNC Park homecoming, but it was a memorable night. He was greeted by a standing ovation from the sellout crowd, and he crushed the first pitch he saw … but didn’t quite elevate it enough to clear the center-field fence. Michael Taylor made a terrific catch.

Ramirez also stung the ball in his next plate appearance, but Taylor again made an above-average catch on the warning track.

Of course, Ramirez knows all about the difficulties of hitting the ball out of PNC Park for a right-handed batter. And he knows how the atmosphere is a little bit different than when he played here more than a decade ago.

Here’s the only postgame video you’ll see of Ramirez from any Pittsburgh outlet, plus a look at that standing ovation:

• Pedro Alvarez spoke following the game and said he isn’t bothered by current trade talk that is circulating around Major League Baseball.

He isn’t about to talk about a recent conversation he had with Hurdle, either.

“That was behind closed doors,” he said.

As for the trade talk?

“I’m not aware of that,” he said. “You know, my job is to come here every day and continue to do what I can to contribute, to get a ‘W’ at the end of the day. Those are things that I don’t even worry about. They’re external.”

Alvarez again wasn’t in the lineup against a southpaw, this after homering in his past two games. He entered the game in the sixth inning and promptly delivered a single. Alvarez claims he isn’t frustrated by what is essentially the role of a platoon player.

“My job is to come every day to the field and control what I can control,” he said. “Work on getting better every day. If I get better, I know I can help this team out. I’m just another player on this team. When given the opportunity, I just try to fulfill my role. I don’t write the lineup. I feel fortunate every time I get the opportunity to get out there.”

• It wasn’t a night to remember for Andrew McCutchen. Although he did record an RBI single, McCutchen struck out in his other three plate appearances. This is a trend. He has struck out 11 times in eight games since the All-Star break, he has now struck out 71 times, and he is on pace to strike out 120 times, which would represent the third-most of his career.

His defense hasn’t been much better since the break.

Bryce Harper’s single was turned into a double Friday because of McCutchen’s less-than-stellar effort in right-center. In the second inning of this game, he missed his cutoff man and second base, throwing a ball from left-center that ended up halfway up the first base line. Luckily, the runners didn’t advance.

• Arquimedes Caminero struggled. Again. Caminero has been working with Ray Searage because, according to Hurdle, his pitches have been “too flat.”

The problem remains. Despite throwing close to 100 mph on a regular basis. Caminero has gotten shelled in recent outings, and this was no different. He permitted a towering home run to Taylor and saw his ERA rise to 4.47.

Hurdle commented before the game that Mark Melancon, Tony Watson and Jared Hughes do their jobs “about as well as anyone.”

The rest of the bullpen, however, remains somewhat unstable.