Sunday afternoon in Petco Park, Peavy gave up five runs on six hits over five innings against Pittsburgh. He issued four walks for the second time in three starts and served up a three-run, tiebreaking homer to Adam LaRoche.

In his previous start last Tuesday night in San Francisco, Peavy served up the first grand slam of his career (to Edgar Renteria) and allowed six runs on seven hits over six innings.

Allowing five or more runs in back-to-back starts is very un-Peavy-like. In fact, it hasn't happened to the unanimous 2007 National League Cy Young Award winner since July 16 and July 21, 2006 -- another WBC year -- when he gave up seven in both games.

Peavy was 0-2 last week and allowed 11 runs on 13 hits and seven walks in 11 innings. After five starts, Peavy has already given up 20 earned runs -- or one more than he allowed in the first two months of the 2008 season.

And last season, Peavy had the best home earned run average in the National League -- a sparkling 1.74 mark. This year, his ERA after three home starts is 4.87.

Clearly, this is not vintage Peavy. After 31 1/3 innings this season, Peavy has given up 33 hits and 13 walks. He has also served up four homers. For all of 2008, Peavy allowed only 17 homers.

Peavy has been burned by the big hit with 14 of the 20 runs he's allowed coming on five pitches -- the grand slam to Renteria, three-run homers to Carlos Delgado and Adam LaRoche and a pair of two-out, two-run singles.

PIRATES 8, PADRES 3: The Padres took an early lead on Adrian Gonzalez's tape-measure homer in the first -- a 458-foot shot to right center that is the longest in Petco Park's five-year-plus history -- then saw ace Jake Peavy give it back, allowing five runs on six hits in five innings. The decisive blow was a three-run homer by Adam LaRoche. The Padres lost for a fifth time in their last six games and departed a 1-2 homestand against the Pirates for seven games on the road against division rivals Colorado and Los Angeles.