The Pirates best chance at winning a game in this international series came crashing down as Paul Skenes gave up four runs on nine hits in five innings to hand the Pirates another loss 5-2 to fall back to .500. Bryan Reynolds had two hits and Marcell Ozuna drove in both of the Pirates runs in the losing effort. Tyler and Doug recapped this one on the NS9 Postgame Show powered by Primanti’s Bros. You can watch/listen here:
Here’s my three takeaways from this loss…
Is It Time to Be Worried About Paul Skenes?
Paul Skenes had a 67.50 ERA after that absurd Opening Day where he didn’t make it out of the first inning thanks to some timely hitting and defensive mishaps. Since that performance in his next eight starts, he allowed just one run or less in seven starts. He posted back-to-back eight shutout innings to open May and lowered his ERA to his usual 1.98. Since those two 8.0-inning performances though, he’s run out of gas in his last two starts including Saturday giving up nine earned runs in his last two starts to balloon his ERA to 3.00. This is the problem with Skenes…he’s so good that when he has a couple mediocre outings, you start wondering what’s up with him? Both starts have starting off fine, but he suddenly hits a fall in the 5th-6th inning. In this game as well he only struck out two batters, his lowest total since that Opening Day fiasco.
I would normally say it happens, flush it and move on but this start was almost exactly like his last one and you just don’t see two bad Skenes starts in a row. So what’s up? Is this just a bad stretch for him? Are teams figuring something out with him that they are taking advantage of or is he experiencing a tired arm as he gets deeper into games after consecutive eight-inning performances? That’s the million dollar question. Hopefully it’s not a tired/dead arm or something where he isn’t 100%. Skenes tossed 187.2 innings last season and never really gave the impression that he was overworked. If anything, he’s one guy that looked and felt like he could pitch 200+ innings where he went 120+ pitches every game like a throwback starting pitcher did back in the day. But these last two starts has me worried about that a bit. Is he really low on gas already in May this season? Doesn’t seem possible, but hopefully he knows himself and will figure it out or speak up if something isn’t right with himself.
Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back
Every time this team gets a couple games above .500 and on a little bit of a run, they fall right back down to .500. They were 16-11 on April 25 and lost five straight to end April at .500. Then rolled out to 24-21, lost three straight to .500. Then won the next two in St. Louis to go 26-24 and then lose the next two in Canada. This team isn’t bad, but they’re incredibly frustrating because it looks like they’re going to hover around .500 all season. They’ll put some good games together to make you think a big run is coming, but then suddenly come crashing back down to Earth. The offense looks great in St. Louis and then can’t hit anything against the Blue Jays.
I think this team is a year away…they’re definitely better than we’ve seen in a while, they have some young pieces in place but lack of depth, lack of strong bullpen arms and probably running out of innings from their young starter arms is probably going to cap this team in 2026. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe this team will get hot in June or July and rip off 10 straight or 12-out-of-13 and be sitting in first place of the NL Central. But as we continue to watch this team, it just feels like they’re a year away to me.
To Stop the Pirates Offense, Just Start a Southpaw
Literally any southpaw will work too. Saturday, it was lefty Patrick Corbin‘s turn to mow the Pirates down. Corbin is 36, had a 4.23 ERA coming in with just 5.9 K/9 and he looked like Warren Spahn in this game. Corbin not only outdueled Skenes, but he goes six strong with just one run allowed and seven strikeouts, his high of the season. Which leads to this incredibly bad, hard-to-believe stat from Colin Beazley and Jason Mackey.
Seven starts against those lefties and they had a 0.40 ERA against the Pirates bats in 45.1 innings. That’s stupid. This lineup’s kypronite is lefty pitchers. It’s a serious problem. They are basically uncompetitive against them. Just like trying to fix a bullpen problem in May, I’m not sure there’s an answer here to make them suddenly better against lefties. They are what they are at this point.
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