It was a night of almost perfect performances for Konnor Griffin and Paul Skenes, with the former throwing himself a birthday bash and the latter flirting with a no-hitter into the seventh inning.
Griffin hit his first major-league home run on his 20th birthday, and Skenes retired the first 20 batters he faced before giving up a single.
It was a career game for Griffin, who went 3 for 4 with three RBIs as the Pirates blanked the Milwaukee Brewers, 6-0, on Friday night at American Family Field.
“For Paul to set the tone like that and Konnor on his birthday to have such a great game, a lot of guys chipped in on that but especially for those two. That was awesome,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “It was fun to watch. I’m sure everybody had a blast watching that, the way Paul was pitching and for Konnor to break out like that.”
Baseball’s No. 1 prospect, Griffin made his major league debut in the April 3 home opener after only five games at Triple-A Indianapolis and signed a nine-year, $140 million contract extension five days later. The 6-foot-3, 222-pound shortstop drove Brandon Woodruff’s 1-1 fastball 386 feet to right field for a solo shot for a 1-0 lead in the third inning.
Griffin became the third major leaguer in the modern era (since 1901) to homer on his 20th birthday, joining Buddy Lewis of the Washington Senators (1936) and Aramis Ramirez of the Pirates (1998), and the only one of the three to have it be his first career homer.
“It was awesome,” Griffin told SportsNet Pittsburgh in an on-field postgame interview. “I’m glad to get that one out of the way. Now we can get rolling. I had no idea what it was going to be like. I just got a good swing off, and the ball did its thing.”
The Pirates increased their lead to 2-0 in the fourth, when Brandon Lowe hit a leadoff double and scored on a two-out single by Nick Gonzales. Bryan Reynolds was caught between the bases on the throw from left fielder Brandon Lockridge to third baseman Luis Rengifo to end the rally.
Spencer Horwitz drew a leadoff walk in the fifth and advanced to third on a single to right by Griffin, who then stole second base. Oneil Cruz hit a sharp grounder to first, but Horwitz used a head-first slide to beat Jake Bauers’ throw to home plate to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead.
After Ryan O’Hearn doubled in the sixth, Horwitz drove him in with a two-out single to center to make it 4-0.
Skenes was perfect through 6 2/3 innings, recording seven strikeouts without a walk. He got two outs on three pitches in the seventh before enduring an eight-pitch battle with Jake Bauers that ended with a single through the right side.
Kelly said it would have been an “extremely difficult” decision to send Skenes out for the eighth after he threw 62 of his 93 pitches for strikes.
“It’s one of those things, if I’m being honest about it, Paul Skenes means a lot to us, and I also understand the gravity of the situation and what that all entails,” Kelly said. “I wish we would’ve gotten to that point for him and for the team. … He had elite stuff tonight. He had perfect game stuff, which was really impressive.”
Skenes threw seven no-hit innings at Milwaukee as a rookie, getting 11 strikeouts with one walk while throwing 65 of his 99 pitches for strikes before getting pulled in the 1-0 win over the Brewers on July 11, 2024. But he lost twice against Milwaukee last season and entered the game with a 1-2 record and 3.86 ERA in four starts against the Brewers.
“There are a lot of pitchers that have gone six perfect, so I wasn’t thinking about it a ton,” Skenes said. “I’ve had no-hit outings and gotten pulled. It was close, so it’s about executing and putting up zeroes and doing everything I can to win the game.”
On Friday, the unanimous 2025 National League Cy Young winner found his four-seamer in the first inning and got seven called strikes and five whiffs with the heater, as well as two called strikes and five whiffs with his splinker. After giving up five runs in two-thirds of an inning in the season opener at the New York Mets, Skenes has allowed only three runs over 29 innings in his past five starts.
“Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that he came up two years ago and is in his third season in the big leagues and he’s continuing to get better, which is amazing considering what he’s already done in the game,” Kelly said of Skenes. “To be able to put Opening Day behind him and pitch the way he’s pitched since just speaks to who he is and what he means to the team as a leader and the guy on the mound that just goes out to dominate every time he takes the ball.”
The Pirates loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth, when O’Hearn singled and Gonzales and Horwitz reached on infield errors. That put Griffin in position to hit a flare to right for a two-run single that scored O’Hearn and Gonzales and gave the Pirates a 6-0 lead.
Mason Montgomery replaced Skenes and retired the side in the eighth, and Isaac Mattson finished off the Brewers in the ninth to preserve their third shutout of the season. Even Skenes couldn’t help but feel like this night was Griffin’s coming-out party.
“He couldn’t do it when he was a teenager, I guess, and wanted to wait until he turned 20,” Skenes said. “First of many. I’m glad he got it out of the way. The league better be on notice because he’s coming.”