The Pirates look to get back up off the mat tonight after last night’s 5-0 shutout loss to the Padres, and it’s always nice to have Paul Skenes on the mound when you’re looking to bounce back off a bad loss. Let’s take a look at the NS9 Bullpen Breakdown as we head into Skenes Day…
The bullpen was in full use last night as Bubba Chandler (4.1, 5 H, 3 R, 4 K, 4 BB) failed to go five innings. Yohan Ramirez tossed 27 pitches in 1.2 innings, Mattson tossed a scoreless frame, Justin Lawrence only needed 13 pitches but gave up a run and Soto pitched a scoreless frame. Pen should still be in good shape for tonight’s game. Dennis Santana is fresh after not pitching the past two games, Soto and Lawrence could pitch back-to-back nights, and I think Hunter Barco would be the bulk guy tonight if needed (let’s hope not with Skenes pitching). Mattson is the one I question if they want to pitch him tonight or not if they don’t need to. He threw 21 pitches and it would be 3/4 nights for him.
Skenes will make his this start of the season. He went five innings of one-run ball last time out on 77 pitches. He could have went longer, but they pulled him after five since it was just his second start. I’m hoping the babying of your ace pitcher stops soon. Skenes has proven he can handle the workload, tossing 187.2 innings in 2025. Push your ace so he can get more than 200 innings this season. You know Paul wants to go deeper in games and he should be allowed to go to 100 pitches every outing of his. This will be his first start of the season at PNC Park and his first game against the Padres of his career. Skenes’ home/away splits have been remarkably consistent through his career. He owns a 2.10 ERA at home (163.0 innings) and a 2.09 ERA on the road (163.1 innings). That’s crazy consistent. Let’s hope he improves that home ERA tonight and also lowers his season ERA which sits at 9.53 ERA currently. Aces need to be the stopper for their team when they’re on a losing streak…there’s no losing streak here yet but Skenes can be the stopper and the starter to get another winning streak going.
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