PITTSBURGH -- The quote of the night didn’t come from the Pirates’ clubhouse Tuesday, but rather social media. As a two-hour and 40-minute rain delay slogged on with no end in sight, Andrew McCutchen posted what everyone was thinking to his X account:

“What’s up guys. Idk what we’re doing.”

McCutchen sent that post at 9:16 p.m. ET, one hour and one minute beyond the original estimated restart time. However, the intense rain caused a flash-flood effect on PNC Park’s warning track, resulting in the drainage system being overrun by dirt. Puddles in the outfield needed an additional hour and a half to clear to make the conditions safe to play, resulting in a rain delay that was longer than the actual nine innings that were played (two hours, 40 minutes compared to two hours, 37 minutes).

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When play did resume, it was the Pirates’ defense that was sloppy, having three hits find leather but not result in outs in the deciding fifth inning in a 6-0 loss to the Padres.

“I mean, it's [the delay] and then you end up playing a bullpen game,” manager Derek Shelton said. “They’ve got a good bullpen, and we didn't keep them at bay.”

Tuesday marks the second time in four days the Pirates’ starter had to exit early because of rain, with it also happening to Mitch Keller in Saturday’s win over the Diamondbacks. While Pittsburgh did have an off-day Monday, those forced short starts have taxed the bullpen, with this coming as the team is about to start a pivotal three series stretch against the Padres, Dodgers and Padres that could make or break the Bucs’ playoff chances.

Bailey Falter was sharp for two innings before being forced to spend most of the night in the weight room or on a bike. Shelton didn’t outright say the left-hander couldn’t have returned had the game resumed at the original 8:15 p.m. restart time, but this was just the second start for Falter since returning from left triceps tendinitis. The southpaw didn’t sound particularly optimistic about re-entering, acknowledging there is usually about a 45-minute window for a pitcher to return from a rain delay.

"It was definitely frustrating, for sure,” Falter said. “I feel like we all saw this coming, but for some reason, we still played on time. But that's above my pay grade. My job is to go out there and toe the rubber when I'm told, and that's exactly what we did."

The Pirates turned to Jake Woodford to eat innings, and after two scoreless frames, the defense unraveled behind him in the fifth. A Jackson Merrill liner glanced off Rowdy Tellez’s glove and fell in for a double, followed by a David Peralta base hit that got under Jared Triolo’s glove and a Tyler Wade bloop that a sliding Ji Hwan Bae couldn’t snag.

Had a combination of those plays been made, Woodford could have had a scoreless outing and maybe been the hero of the evening. Instead, like his spot start in Houston where Oneil Cruz made a trio of errors, he exited with three runs allowed.

“He’s throwing the ball well,” Shelton said. “There’s nothing he could do in that situation. He’s executing pitches. He couldn’t have thrown a better pitch to Peralta to jam him and we get a soft fly ball that lands in there.”

The Pirates would bring the potential tying run to the plate with two outs in the seventh, but Triolo struck out to end their best rally of the night.

The Pirates don’t have much time to regroup, either. Every game in this stretch is pivotal for the NL Wild Card chase, and Wednesday’s starter, Marco Gonzales, is also building back up from an arm injury. Kyle Nicolas (2 2/3 innings) and Woodford (2 1/3 innings) helped save the bullpen, but that doesn’t leave Pittsburgh with much in the way of middle-relief options.

“I’m going to have to get with [pitching coach] Oscar [Marin] and see where we are at,” Shelton said, “where we think people are at, and then we will talk through that and kind of go from there.”