The Pittsburgh Pirates looked to the future by turning back the clock, having right-hander Quinn Priester and catcher Endy Rodriguez become their first battery in 80 years to make their major league debuts together.

With the season spiraling and infielders Ke’Bryan Hayes and Ji Hwan Bae injured, manager Derek Shelton started six rookies Monday night — only for the Pirates to endure their most lopsided loss.

After tossing three scoreless no-hit innings, Priester allowed seven runs on seven hits, including a pair of two-run home runs, as the Cleveland Guardians rolled to a 11-0 win before 20,080 at PNC Park to hand the Pirates their 11th shutout loss of the season.

“That’s the way we’re going to be moving forward, at least until we get healthy,” Shelton said. “We’re going to have a lot of young guys on the field, and there’s going to be growing pains, and there’s going to be bumps, and we just have to grind through them.”

It was the fourth consecutive loss and 11th in 13 games for the Pirates (41-53), whose only other double-digit defeat was a 14-4 loss at the San Francisco Giants on May 29.

The Pirates had hoped for a spark by promoting Priester, a 22-year-old right-hander who was a 2019 first-round draft pick, and Rodriguez, a 23-year-old who was their 2022 minor league player of the year. They were joined in the lineup by former first-round picks in right fielder Henry Davis and second baseman Nick Gonzales, as well as fellow rookies in third baseman Jared Triolo and shortstop Liover Peguero.

“The future is here, man,” Rodriguez said. “I know we’re going to do something special with this team. At some point, we’re going to do the best job. I know we have a lot of younger players here and I think we have the talent. We’re going to do something special.”

Priester (0-1) retired the first nine batters he faced by getting eight groundouts and a lineout on 25 pitches (19 strikes). His next two times through the order didn’t go as smooth, as Priester never threw a pitch at a velocity higher than 94.3 mph.

After Steven Kwan drew a five-pitch leadoff walk in the fourth inning, Amed Rosario sent Priester’s 1-1 slider 408 feet into the visiting bullpen for his third home run and a 2-0 Guardians lead.

“First three went really well, filling it up and getting ahead early,” Priester said. “Then that is what changed: starting to fall behind guys. Really tried to fight back into counts, but against good hitters, need to be a little bit better, for sure.”

Priester recorded his first career strikeout in the fifth by getting designated hitter Josh Bell, a former Pirates All-Star first baseman, swinging at an 80-mph curveball just below the strike zone. Priester followed by walking Will Brennan, who scored on Bo Naylor’s double to the North Side Notch to give the Guardians a 3-0 lead.

“The first three innings, he put the ball on the ground,” Shelton said. “Used the sinker and kept the ball down in the zone. Both walks ended up coming back to hurt him. … And then after that, it looked like it flattened out a little bit, got up in the zone.”

The Pirates put a runner in scoring position in the fifth, when Gonzales doubled to left and advanced to third on Peguero’s groundout. But Cleveland manager Terry Francona turned to lefty reliever Sam Hentges to face the left handed-hitting Jack Suwinski, who went down swinging at a full-count curveball to strand Gonzales.

Rosario singled to start the sixth, scoring from first when Jose Ramirez doubled high off the Clemente Wall to give the Guardians a 4-0 lead. Josh Naylor doubled down the right field line to score Ramirez to make it 5-0, and Andres Gimenez drilled Priester’s 91.8-mph four-seam fastball 363 feet to right for a two-run homer and a 7-0 lead.

“I did some really good things. In those first three innings, definitely proved to myself that I belong,” said Priester, who got 11 groundouts. “The later three innings, couple of walks, I let myself fall behind. It’s more about doing what I did in the first three than the last three and being able to repeat that, find those things out of the stretch and feel real confident there. It’s always gonna be things to work on. From this start, we saw a couple things that definitely need to be worked on.”

Priester was finally pulled after giving up a single to Brennan. Yohan Ramirez got the final two outs of the sixth but hit Steven Kwan to start the seventh. When Ramirez left a 2-1 sinker up and outside, Naylor smacked it 425 feet to the North Side Notch for a two-run, opposite-field homer as the Guardians stretched their lead to 9-0.

Cleveland stretched its lead to 10-0 in the eighth against Dauri Moreta, who hit Bell with a pitch, gave up a double to Myles Straw and a two-out RBI single to Kwan.

After Ramirez doubled off the Clemente Wall and Gimenez drew a walk against Yerry De Los Santos, Rodriguez was called for catcher’s interference on Bell. The Pirates challenged the call, however, and it was overturned upon video review.

Bell drew a full-count walk to load the bases, and Straw beat out a grounder to first that allowed pinch runner Tyler Freeman to score to stretch Cleveland’s lead to 11.

Emmanuel Clase struck out Ji-Man Choi and Davis in the ninth before Triolo’s bloop single dropped in shallow right field, but Rodriguez went down swinging for his third strikeout to end the game.

“It’s a debut. It only happens once, for both of us,” Priester said. “Maybe not the way you wanted it to go, but nonetheless a really exciting day in both of our lives. We have to take as much good as we can from today and learn from the bad.”

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