There are days during the season when Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo will arrive for his postgame session with reporters ready to rattle off all the things his team did well. This was not one of them.

“We’re as far from that as we’ve been,” Lovullo said, “in quite some time.”

Facing flamethrowing right-hander Paul Skenes, the Diamondbacks were beaten handily on Wednesday afternoon, May 28, falling 10-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who claimed the rubber match of their three-game series.

For the Diamondbacks, it was a lifeless and uninspiring performance against one of the bottom-feeders of the National League.

Second baseman Jordan Lawlar, playing a second consecutive game in place of an under-the-weather Ketel Marte, made two errors in the field. Outfielders missed cutoff men with their throws. Corbin Carroll slammed his bat in frustration after a fly out late in the game.

The Diamondbacks were shut down by Skenes, who allowed just four hits, walked none and struck out seven in 6 2/3 innings.

If their loss the night before was the gut punch — they blew a 6-0 lead in a 9-6 defeat on May 27 — this was a sort of finishing shot, a kick-them-while-they’re-down day that dropped them to a season-worst two games under .500 at 27-29.

“You ask me for answers,” Lovullo said. “I don’t know what the answers are. We’ve just got to continue to believe, continue to fight.”

He added: “We’ve had a bad week of work. That’s how I’m going to chalk it up.”

The loss was the Diamondbacks’ seventh in their past eight games. They are seven games out in the National League West and 4 1/2 games back in the wild-card race.

Both right-hander Zac Gallen, who gave up six runs (five earned) in five-plus innings and Lovullo wondered if the frustration from the night before carried over. Lovullo said his team “looked like it saw a ghost” around the seventh inning, not long after the Pirates exploded for a five-run sixth to take control of the game.

“I don’t blame them,” Lovullo said. “I think we’re all frustrated. … I think there was a little bit of a hangover from being six outs away from finishing out a game last night that we couldn’t finish out. We’ve got to flush it.”

For Gallen, the outing extended a string of poor starts from the club’s longtime ace. He has given up 20 runs (19 earned) in 21 1/3 innings over his past four starts. He has issued 11 walks in that span, including three more against the Pirates — all of them to lead off innings, all of which led to runs.

“From a clubhouse standpoint, I think we know we have a lot more talent — we’re a better baseball team — than how we’re playing right now,” Gallen said. “It’s kind of very uncharacteristic of us the last couple of weeks.

“It starts with me, really. I’m not giving us a chance to win when I’m out there. We’ve got a lot of talent in this clubhouse, a really good culture. We’ve had our struggles before in years where we kind of finished on a pretty good note. We’ve got to get into gear. I get that it’s still a third of the way into the season so you don’t want to overreact, but time’s ticking.”

The losses to the Pirates are the latest unfathomable defeats the Diamondbacks have suffered this season. Every week, it seems a new game emerges as the one they will most regret come October. But at this pace, it won’t be just one game that costs them a chance at the postseason.

They lost a game in which they scored 10 runs in the eighth inning. They lost two others in which they scored at least 11 runs, including a game to a Colorado Rockies team that is on pace for 27 wins. They also lost a game in which Eugenio Suarez clobbered four home runs.

Their loss in the series finale was perhaps not as egregious as those — they faced Skenes, after all — but it was still ugly.

“Nothing against the Pirates, but I think they went a month without scoring five runs in a game,” Lovullo said. “They did that twice in one inning against us (in the past two games). That’s unacceptable. We’re better than that.

“If you’re asking for the top thing that makes me frustrated — teams batting around against our staff and we’re getting bullied around the baseball field. And I don’t like it at all.”

Lovullo was thankful the club has an off day on the calendar before opening a three-game series against the Washington Nationals on May 30.

“We’ve got to flush it,” Lovullo said. “We’ve got to get through it.”

Coming up

Thursday, May 29: Off.

Friday, May 30: At Chase Field, 6:40 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Merrill Kelly (5-2, 3.52) vs. Nationals RHP Jake Irvin (4-1, 3.42).

Saturday, May 31: At Chase Field, 7:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Brandon Pfaadt (7-3, 3.90) vs. Nationals RHP Michael Soroka (1-3, 5.61).

Sunday, June 1: At Chase Field, 1:10 p.m., Diamondbacks RHP Ryne Nelson (2-1, 3.79) vs. Nationals LHP Mitchell Parker (4-3, 4.39).