Pirates End Paul Skenes's Season With Bang vs. Yankees
The Pittsburgh Pirates continued their role of playing spoiler on Saturday afternoon, taking down the New York Yankees, 9-4.
The final start of Paul Skenes' rookie season lasted all of just two innings, but he went out with a bang. The Pirates' ace collected back-to-back punchouts of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge in the first inning and then got Jazz Chisholm Jr. looking at strike three to end the day, dropping his ERA to 1.96 - the lowest by a rookie since 1950. Michael Burrows came in relief for Skenes to make his Major League debut and had a pretty decent outing, giving up just one earned run in 3.1 innings of work and picking up the win.
The Pirates slugged five home runs in the game with all nine of their runs coming via the long ball. Yasmani Grandal, Jared Triolo, Nick Gonzales, Nick Yorke, and Billy Cook all went deep. New York scratched one run across in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings to make it a 6-4 game, but a Grandal RBI single and the two-run shot by Yorke put the game out of reach.
PITTSBURGH PIRATES
1. 3B Isiah Kiner-Falefa 0-5
2. DH Bryan Reynolds 1-4
3. CF Oneil Cruz 0-4
4. SS Nick Gonzales 1-4 HR
5. RF Joshua Palacios 0-2 2 BB
6. 1B Jared Triolo 1-4 HR, 2 RBI
7. C Yasmani Grandal 3-4 HR, 2 RBI
8. 2B Nick Yorke 1-4 HR, 2 RBI
9. LF Billy Cook 1-4 HR, 2 RBI
NEW YORK YANKEES
1. LF Jasson Dominguez 1-4, BB
2. RF Juan Soto 1-3 RBI, 2 BB
3. CF Aaron Judge 0-5 5 K
4. C Austin Wells 0-3 2 BB
5. DH Giancarlo Stanton 0-4
6. 3B Jazz Chisholm Jr. 2-4 HR 2 RBI
7. 1B Anthony Rizzo 1-2
PH Anthony Volpe 0-1
8. SS Oswaldo Cabrera 1-4
9. 2B Jon Berti 1-3 BB
The Pirates will close out the 2024 regular season tomorrow afternoon with first pitch set for 3:05 p.m. EST. They will send out lefty Bailey Falter (8-9, 4.26 ERA) to face Clarke Schmidt (5-5, 2.55 ERA).
