Inclement weather Wednesday evening in Detroit deprived the Pittsburgh Pirates a chance at facing one of baseball’s best pitchers on a day that the club has consistently performed very well.
The Pirates are 10-1 on Wednesdays this season and were supposed to take on 2024 AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal at Comerica Park before a cancellation resulted in a split doubleheader Thursday vs. the Tigers.
But the Pirates got their crack at Skubal anyway as he started Game 1, which was delayed 40 minutes because of rain, on Thursday afternoon against Andrew Heaney.
Skubal wasn’t as dominant as usual but did enough over 5 2/3 innings, and Detroit tagged Heaney for a season-high seven runs to hand the Pirates a 9-2 loss and win the series.
The loss was the Pirates’ (29-46) fourth straight.
Heaney (3-6, 3.94 ERA) lasted only four innings, with all of his runs earned, on eight hits.
He walked three, struck out two and threw 46 of his 85 pitches for strikes.
“Seemed like he fell behind a little bit,” manager Don Kelly said of Heaney’s start on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “To (the Tigers’) credit, they weren’t chasing. … A few walks, they put the ball in play and made some things happen when they got guys on base.”
Skubal (8-2, 2.06 ERA) allowed two runs on six hits, striking out eight while tying his season high in walks (three).
Following a shaky beginning by Skubal, who issued back-to-back walks for the first time this season to load the bases before escaping the first inning, Detroit jumped on Heaney early.
In the bottom of the first, the Tigers quickly put men on second and third with no outs after Gleyber Torres singled and Jahmai Jones doubled.
A Riley Greene sacrifice fly then made it 1-0.
Detroit went up 2-0 in the second courtesy of another sacrifice fly, this time by Torres, who plated Dillon Dingler.
Dingler singled, with a Javier Baez single and a walk to Parker Meadows moving him to third.
After Heaney walked Jones to load the bases again, Greene dropped a shallow single into center field past a diving Billy Cook, clearing the bags and putting the Tigers up 5-0.
The Tigers added to their lead in the fourth, going up 6-0 when Torres doubled home Meadows, who singled.
Heaney then faced another bases-loaded jam, following a walk to Jones and single by Greene.
That set up Spencer Torkelson, who brought Torres home with a sacrifice fly, putting the Tigers up 7-0.
“This is not the first time I’ve had a bad start — I’ve had plenty of those in my career,” Heaney said postgame. “You just got to go out there, do the same thing, prepare yourself and go make better pitches and have a better outing next time.”
The Pirates finally found some luck against Skubal in the fifth, when Andrew McCutchen scored Cook with an RBI groundout.
Cook had reached via a bloop single and advanced to third on a double by Nick Gonzales before McCutchen made it 7-1.
Heaney’s afternoon was done after four innings, with Chase Shugart taking over for the fifth.
Zach McKinstry led off with a solo homer against Shugart to make it 8-1 before Dingler was plunked and Baez and Torres singled.
Colt Keith then made it 9-1 with the Tigers’ fourth sacrifice fly of the day before Shugart got out of the frame.
Skubal’s outing came to an end with two outs in the sixth after Tommy Pham made the score 9-2 with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly.
“He’s got elite stuff,” Kelly said of Skubal. “First inning, I thought we did a really good job of forcing a lot of pitches (and) getting guys on base. … We had some opportunities to score and push a couple across, but, not enough.”
Jack Suwinski, added by the Pirates from Triple-A Indianapolis on Thursday to serve as their 27th man on roster for the doubleheader, subbed into the game in the seventh inning at center field.
In the eighth, he flew out in his first big-league at-bat since April 20.
Shugart pitched three innings after Heaney, with Ryan Borucki handling the eighth.