The Pittsburgh Pirates not providing run support for Paul Skenes seems like a distant memory as they scored in the double digits for the first time this season.
And they did that in the sixth inning alone.
Skenes delivered a quality start with six strikeouts in as many innings, but this one was all about the bats as the Pirates pounded the Washington Nationals, 16-5, on Monday night before 11,532 at PNC Park.
Brandon Lowe went 3 for 5 with his sixth home run to become the first Pirates player to have five RBIs in back-to-back games since runs batted in became an official statistic in 1920. Lowe led a 16-hit parade that also featured multi-hit games by Oneil Cruz, Bryan Reynolds, Spencer Horwitz and Henry Davis.
“Can’t draw it up much better,” Reynolds said. “A guy like that doesn’t need a cushion, but to give him those runs and let him go out there and do his thing.”
It marked only the third game in the 25-year history of PNC Park when the Pirates scored 16 or more runs. The others were an 18-2 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on June 18, 2005, and an 18-5 win over the Chicago Cubs on July 1, 2019.
The Pirates scored 10 runs in the sixth inning alone, marking the first time they have done so since a 10-run first inning in a 14-3 win at the Chicago Cubs on July 9, 2017. It was their first 10-run inning at home since the seventh of an 11-4 win over the Colorado Rockies on May 17, 2009.
Lowe described the sixth inning, when the Pirates had 14 hitters come to bat, as “electric.”
“Hitting’s contagious. You see what good teams can do out there,” Lowe said. “That’s the best way to describe it. Hitting’s contagious. When multiple guys are going well, everybody is itching to get up there and ready to go. That’s kind of a tip to all the guys in here. Everybody has put their work in during the offseason. Now they’re starting to see the rewards of everybody’s hard work, and they start to understand what they have in this clubhouse.”
After averaging only 3.4 runs for Skenes last year, when he was the unanimous winner of the National League Cy Young Award, the Pirates have scored at least seven runs in each of Skenes’ starts. Last year, it took 11 starts by Skenes for the Pirates to match the 37-run total they have posted in his four outings this season.
“It’s huge,” Skenes said. “I told the guys after the game it makes it easy to pitch. Even if I’m not getting it while I’m in the game, being out there pitching and kind of knowing it is going to happen at some point makes it a lot easier to pitch.”
Skenes (3-1) threw 60 of his 88 pitches for strikes, getting 10 called strikes and 15 whiffs. He leaned primarily on his changeup and four-seam fastball, mixing in his sweeper and curveball. He struck out the first two batters he faced, National League player of the week James Wood on a sweeper and Luis Garcia Jr. on a changeup, to become the first pitcher in Pirates history to record 400 strikeouts in his first 59 starts.
Just when Skenes appeared to be getting into a groove, the next batter, CJ Abrams, hit a 99.5 mph fastball for a 379-foot line drive over the Clemente Wall to give the Nationals a 1-0 lead.
With one out in the bottom of the first, Lowe reached on a throwing error by Garcia at first base and Reynolds after being hit by a pitch. Nationals right-hander Cade Cavalli (0-1) regrouped to get Ryan O’Hearn swinging at a knuckle curve and Nick Yorke looking at a called third strike on a sinker away at the bottom of the strike zone.
In the second, Konnor Griffin drew a leadoff walk, Jake Mangum singled to left and Davis walked to load the bases for Cruz, who rallied from an 0-2 count to work a seven-pitch walk to tie the score.
“I thought that was the most professional at-bat I’ve seen him take,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “In that moment of the game, to be able to get down like that and stay in the fight and work a walk — he’s having great at-bats.”
Lowe followed with a bloop single to shallow left to score Mangum and Davis for a 3-1 lead. Reynolds followed by poking an opposite-field single to drive in Cruz and make it 4-1, causing Nationals manager Blake Butera to pull Cavalli for righty Paxton Schultz with one out and runners on first and second.
Horwitz made it 5-1 in the third when he sent a 2-0 cutter 376 feet into the right-field seats for his first home run of the season.
The Pirates padded their lead with the 10-run sixth inning, doing most of the damage against righty Jackson Rutledge, a former first-round pick who was recalled Monday from Triple-A Rochester and allowed seven runs on six hits and two walks in 1 1/3 innings.
Davis started the rally with a single, Cruz drew an eight-pitch walk and Lowe singled to load the bases for Reynolds, who hit a bases-clearing triple down the right-field line. O’Hearn drove him in with a double to straightaway center then scored on a single by Griffin for a 10-1 lead.
“I got in the dugout and almost put my gear on,” Davis said, “and I was like, ‘No, I’m going to hit again.’ So I kept it off.”
Brad Lord replaced Rutledge, only to load the bases by walking Mangum. Cruz then lined a slider off the Clemente Wall at a 114.1 mph exit velocity for a two-run single to make it 12-1.
“I’m kind of glad it didn’t get out because that was heading for somebody out in the stands,” Kelly said. “That would not have been good.”
Lowe followed by crushing a full-count changeup 410 feet to right for a three-run homer, his third in two days and sixth of the season.
Jose Urquidy relieved Skenes for the seventh, only to give up four runs on six hits, including a two-run homer to Jacob Young and a two-run single by Nasim Nunez that cut it to 15-5.
The Pirates tacked on another run in the eighth, when the Nationals resorted to using right fielder Joey Wiemer as a pitcher. Davis and Billy Cook singled, Lowe was hit by a pitch that bounced before home plate and pinch hitter Joey Bart hit a sacrifice fly to score Davis and make it 16-5.
“When we’ve been right, when we’ve had success, it’s the same as every other good offense,” Skenes said. “Just kind of passing it off to the next guy and trusting the next guy is going to get the job done. And we’ve done a really good job with that. That will continue. We have a very balanced lineup and everybody puts a good at-bat together, so it’s been fun to watch. I still don’t feel like we’re playing our best baseball yet. And not that it’s been bad, but I think there’s kind of more in the tank and so it’s going to be really fun.”