(Sports Network) - Ace right-hander Ben Sheets hopes to end a May skid tonight when the Milwaukee Brewers visit PNC Park for the second of three games with the host Pittsburgh Pirates.

Sheets was 4-0 with a no-decision and a 0.96 earned run average through his initial five starts between Mar 31 and April 29, but has since gone winless in three starts in the season's second full month.

In a loss and two no-decisions, Sheets has allowed 25 hits and 13 runs in 19 1/3 innings and has seen his ERA swell to 3.25 overall in 52 2/3 innings. He was touched for nine hits and six runs in his last start, a 7-2 loss to Los Angeles on May 15.

He is 6-8 lifetime against the Pirates in 20 starts with a 3.11 ERA in 133 1/3 innings.

Pittsburgh right-hander Ian Snell has gone even longer since his last win.

The 26-year-old Delaware native is winless in six starts since a 4-3 triumph over Cincinnati on April 12.

He's lost twice and picked up four no-decisions since, including a four-inning stint against St. Louis on May 15, in which he gave up 11 hits and five runs in an 11-5 Pirates victory.

However, Snell is 4-0 lifetime in five appearances - four starts - against the Brewers, losing a 3.72 ERA in 29 innings.

On Tuesday, Manny Parra's terrific outing on the hill was backed by a 14-hit barrage as the Brewers snapped a five-game losing streak with a 7-2 victory over the Pirates.

Parra (2-2) entered the contest in the midst of a personal seven-start winless stretch, but the left-hander held the Pirates off the scoreboard for 5 2/3 innings, allowing just four hits and a walk, while striking out six in halting the Brewers' nine-game road losing skid.

Relievers Seth McLung and Guillermo Mota did not allow a hit in their 2 1/3 combined innings of relief, but Eric Gagne squandered the shutout bid by surrendering a two-run homer in the ninth.

Pittsburgh's Paul Maholm (2-5) was credited with the loss after being touched for four runs on nine hits and two walks through 6 1/3 innings.

Jason Bay's blast in the ninth accounted for the club's only runs, and Xavier Nady tallied two of the Pirates' six hits in the their second straight setback.

Milwaukee won 10 of its 16 matchups with the Pirates a year ago, but was just 2-5 in the Steel City. The Brewers are also just 6-12 in Pittsburgh since the start of the 2006 season.