Paul Skenes started for the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 1 against Zack Wheeler and the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 3 of their four-game set at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, PA. The Pirates were trying to end an eight-game losing streak in his starts.
That streak made this game matter beyond one night. Skenes came in with a 6-7 record and a 3.10 ERA, but Pittsburgh had lost each of his last eight outings, including a 6-4 loss on June 26 when he worked five innings against the Cincinnati Reds and allowed six hits and four earned runs.
The matchup also put him opposite Wheeler, who had been working like a front-line arm all season. Wheeler was 8-1 with a 2.03 ERA and in his last start held the New York Mets to four hits and one earned run over seven innings in a 2-1 win at Citi Field. He had already shut out the Pirates over seven innings in a 6-0 win on May 17 at PNC Park, the same date Skenes took a 6-0 loss at home after giving up six hits and five earned runs in five innings.
That is the friction inside Pittsburgh’s problem. The Pirates were not losing because Skenes was unavailable or ineffective in a single outing; they were losing because his starts had become a repeating test they could not solve, even when he gave them enough innings to stay in the game. The broadcast was listed as KDKA AM/FM and Sportsnet Pittsburgh, underscoring how closely this one was being followed back home.
What came next was the only question that mattered for Pittsburgh: whether one start could finally interrupt a run that had stretched across home and road and turned Skenes, despite the numbers on his line, into the center of the Pirates’ nightly urgency.
