Pedro Alvarez, Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones homered, Erik Bedard pitched six shutout innings and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat Chicago 10-4 Sunday and sent the Cubs to their 12th consecutive defeat.

Alvarez hit a three-run homer in the first — Pittsburgh's first this season with more than one man on — McCutchen added a solo shot in the fifth and Jones went deep to right with Neil Walker on in the fifth.

Pittsburgh completed its first three-game sweep at PNC Park since Sept. 17-19, 2010.

Although the Cubs are in their longest losing streak since starting the 1997 season 0-14, few of the previous 11 were like this. Six were by one run, including the first two games of this series.

Starlin Castro homered during a three-run eighth to save some face for Chicago, which had scored during two of the previous 33 innings.

The lowest-scoring team in baseball, the Pirates set a season high for runs and matched a season high by winning their third consecutive game.

Alvarez homered for the first time in 24 days in the first inning, taking a 3-1 pitch from Matt Garza (2-3) deep up into the elevated seats in right-center.

McCutchen re-tied Alvarez for the team lead with his eighth home run, in the fifth inning.

Jones snapped an 0 for 11 stretch when he pulled Garza's final pitch deep into the right-field seats.

That was only the beginning for the Pirates in their six-run sixth. Demoted from the closer's role after losing Saturday night's game when he hit Matt Hague with a pitch with the bases loaded, Rafael Dolis came in and walked both batters he faced.

After Bedard sacrificed, pinch-hitter Gorkys Hernandez lined a single to center off of Michael Bowden for his first hit and first two RBIs in the majors.

Alvarez added a sacrifice fly and Walker an RBI single to give the Pirates 10 runs in a game for the first time since July 3, 2011.

Bedard (3-5) allowed two hits. He had four walks and three strikeouts.

After allowing five runs over a stretch of four starts, Garza has been tagged for a total of 13 over eight innings in his past two outings. He was charged with six runs (five earned) on seven hits, a walk and six strikeouts Sunday.