PITTSBURGH — Paul Skenes didn’t have the cleanest begin on Thursday evening.
But the Pirates’ ace right-hander was capable of pitch six scoreless innings to guide his workforce to a 7-0 victory over the Reds within the opener of a four-game sequence at PNC Park.
The Reds acquired seven hits off Skenes, probably the most he has allowed in 47 profession begins. But the Reds have been hitless in 5 at-bats with runners in scoring place towards Skenes, left six runners on base within the first six innings and by no means acquired a runner to 3rd base.
Skenes was coming off a highway loss towards the Rockies by which he gave up 4 runs in 5 innings final Saturday. Nevertheless, he lowered his MLB-leading ERA from 2.02 to 1.94 on Thursday and ran his scoreless innings streak towards the Reds to 22.
Cam Sanders, Ryan Borucki and Kyle Nicolas every pitched one inning to finish the nine-hit shutout.
Bryan Reynolds hit a solo house run within the first, and Jared Triolo had a two-run single later within the inning off Brady Singer (9-9) because the Pirates took a fast 3-0 lead. Henry Davis’ two-run shot, his first house run since June 7, pushed the Pirates’ result in 7-0 within the seventh inning.
Reynolds, Triolo, and Davis every had two of the Pirates’ 10 hits. Andrew McCutchen walked 4 occasions to tie his profession excessive.
The Pirates (50-66) had misplaced 4 of their earlier six video games.
