Paul Skenes was supposed to steady the Pirates on Wednesday night. Instead, Pittsburgh left Daikin Park with an 11-9 loss to the Astros after surrendering six runs in the eighth inning and turning a four-run lead into another gut-punch defeat.
The loss came in MLB regular-season Game 62 on June 3, and it snapped Pittsburgh's four-game winning streak. Skenes, who entered at 6-5 with a 2.89 ERA, lasted 4 2/3 innings against Houston, while Spencer Arrighetti started for the Astros with a 7-1 record and a 1.34 ERA. By the end, the Pirates had scored enough to reach nine runs but still could not finish the job.
That was the part that made the result sting. Henry Davis hit a grand slam and Nick Gonzales homered and drove in three runs, giving Pittsburgh enough offense to build a cushion that should have held. Instead, Houston kept coming in the eighth, scoring six runs to erase the deficit and tie the game at 9-9 on a wild pitch by Gregory Soto. After Mason Montgomery entered, José Altuve's team added runs on back-to-back doubles and pushed past Pittsburgh for good.
The collapse also undercut one of the stranger streaks in franchise history. The Pirates had scored at least nine runs in four straight games for the first time since 1928, yet even that kind of run production was not enough to cover for the bullpen when the game tightened late. Pittsburgh got the offense it needed early and still lost the game in one inning.
What comes next is the question the result leaves behind: how manager and staff sort through a bullpen that could not protect a four-run lead when Skenes had already been lifted after 4 2/3 innings. The Pirates do not get credit for the runs they scored in the first seven innings if the eighth keeps going this way.
