The improvements made by Pittsburgh Pirates starter Paul Skenes were decent.
The regression by the rest of his teammates after the first inning was massive.
The storyline coming into Tuesday’s series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers was Skenes’ quest to rediscover his Cy Young dominance of a year ago after four consecutive lackluster outings.
But after a crisp 2-0 start from Skenes and his teammates through the first inning, what followed was a team-wide disintegration. The Dodgers routed the Pirates, 12-3, at PNC Park in a game that featured a 10-run top of the seventh.
Los Angeles’ top seventh lasted so long, I’m pretty sure the franchise was still in Brooklyn when it began.
A game that was 2-2 after the Pirates batted in the sixth inning was 12-2 by the time they came to the plate again.
When the L.A. parade to the bat rack finally ended after 39 tedious minutes, the seventh inning stretch was replaced by a mass exit to the gates from the 30,646 who hoped to see the Pirates put up a much better fight against the defending World Series Champions.
Along with the 10 L.A. runs, that frame featured 68 pitches, seven hits, four walks, three Pirates pitchers, two Pirates errors and an Andy Pages homer in a pear tree.
Andy Pages makes it a 4-run 7th inning for the @Dodgers! pic.twitter.com/qFY9zWN5iG
— MLB (@MLB) June 10, 2026
“You just stay locked in. Try to make a play,” center fielder Jake Mangum said. “We have a job to do. Play our position to the best of our ability.”
That didn’t happen often enough.
The lowlights included the go-ahead run scoring when catcher Henry Davis attempted to pick off a runner at third base. He also failed to cleanly catch an off-target throw to home from second baseman Brandon Lowe. That play allowed Los Angeles’ seventh run of the game to score.
“An inning like that, struggling to throw strikes, then compounding it when you don’t execute plays, it’s not good,” manager Don Kelly said.
As for Skenes, he’s now gone five starts without a win — although this effort was more worthy of victory than his previous four. The two-time All-Star allowed only two earned runs over six innings, striking out seven while walking two and allowing six hits.
“He still had some left in the tank,” Kelly said after pulling Skenes before the seventh. “I thought he threw the ball really well. I thought the command was better. The velo was where it normally is. I thought that his off-speed stuff was sharper.”
Perhaps the most important thing is that Skenes saw some improvement in his fastball, which had not been the weapon it normally is over the last few weeks. According to ESPN.com, five of his seven punchouts were on four-seam fastballs.
“Felt good,” Skenes said of the fastball. “Probably the best it’s been in a few outings, execution wise. I went to it a little more than we had previously.”
It still took Skenes 103 pitches to get through six innings, and he did let a 2-1 lead slip through his fingers by yielding a Max Muncy RBI single in the sixth. It was a two-out, two-strike pitch. Skenes couldn’t put Muncy away on his own, and Lowe couldn’t handle the grounder off his bat.
Max Muncy singles off Paul Skenes in the sixth to knot the game back up for the Dodgers! pic.twitter.com/Fxs6JWIizi
— Talkin' Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 10, 2026
So Skenes still wasn’t the overwhelming force of nature we’ve come to expect during his first two years as a Pirate.
“It’s fine,” Skenes shrugged. “I mean, we lost, so kind of, it is what it is.”
But nothing Skenes did on the mound over the first six innings was going to be talked about after the fielding and bullpen malpractice that was on display in the seventh.
Skenes drew a lot of attention for an impromptu visit to an Ignomar Franklin Park Little League field on Monday.
Unfortunately, the Pirates ended up looking like a bunch of Little Leaguers by the end of the game Tuesday.