Paul Skenes Shines as Pirates Building Winning Streak
It wasn't the prettiest outing, but Paul Skenes managed to grind out a win in the Pittsburgh Pirates' 5-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.
Skenes pitched five shutout innings, allowing four hits and four walks and he struck out six batters on 100 pitches. With the win, Skenes improved to 9-2 with a 2.13 ERA.
The Cubs managed to load the bases in each of the first two innings and had runners on first and second with two outs in the third, but the Pirates' rookie right-hander wiggled out of each situation unscathed. Skenes retired seven batters in a row to end his outing.
With that performance, Skenes improved to 2-0 in his two starts at Wrigley Field, pitching 11 innings without allowing a run and he struck out 17 batters.
Here's the pitch layout and his average velocity per pitch from the start from Baseball Savant.
Fastballs: 46 — averaged 99 miles per hour
Changeups: 19 — averaged 87.6 mph
Sliders: 14 — averaged 86.1 mph
Sinkers: 14 — averaged 94.7 mph
Curveballs: 5 — averaged 82.8 mph
Sweepers: 2
Skenes averaging 99 mph on his fastball was a slight increase from his last outing when he averaged 98.6 mph on Wednesday against the Cubs at PNC Park. He also topped out at 101.1 mph after not breaking 100 mph since July 23 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
With the win, the Pirates tied up the season series 6-6 after taking the first two games of their three-game series at Wrigley Field. It's also a stark contrast to how they pitched in their previous series against Chicago in Pittsburgh. After allowing 41 runs over three games last week to the Cubs, Pittsburgh has held them to three runs through the first two games in Chicago.
Pittsburgh will have a chance to take the season series on Wednesday when it faces the Cubs at 7:40 p.m. ET at Wrigley Field.
NATHANIEL MARRERO