Skenes' 'splinker' unusually vulnerable in loss to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES -- Paul Skenes’ homecoming was bumpier than we’ve seen from him in the Majors thus far, as the Orange County kid allowed a season-high four runs in a 4-1 Pirates loss to the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Saturday. That defeat extended the Pirates’ losing streak to six games, tied for their longest such stretch this season.

While Skenes was able to control the two MVPs in the Dodgers’ lineup, making Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman both go 0-for-3, other hitters gave him trouble. Teoscar Hernández racked up three hits, while Gavin Lux drove in three runs.

"I thought I executed pretty much all of those pitches,” Skenes said. “Against Lux, the sinker was maybe a little too far in. The four-seam drifted across the plate a little bit. Against Teoscar, I don't think I didn't execute any of those pitches. He's a good hitter and he got to them. Gotta tip your cap. They're good hitters."

It was also one of the first times all year that Skenes’ “splinker” -- his hybrid of a sinker and splitter -- actually looked hittable. Coming into the game, hitters were held to a .170 batting average with a 30 percent whiff rate on the offering. But on Saturday, Dodger hitters picked up three hits against it. That included a fifth-inning home run by Hernández, who became the first hitter to hit a “pump” against it, to borrow Skenes’ terminology.

Manager Derek Shelton disagreed that the pitch was off on the night, and Skenes hasn’t seemed to lose any confidence in the pitch, justifiably so.

"I'm not going to stop throwing it,” Skenes said. “He won the Home Run Derby this year, right? He won it for a reason. Gotta tip your cap. I'm gonna keep attacking guys with that pitch."

But those hits from the Dodgers’ Nos. 2 and 4 hitters limited Skenes to just six innings. He allowed four runs on six hits and a walk and struck out eight.

Offensively, the Pirates had nine hits, but their only run came on a Ke’Bryan Hayes solo shot in the ninth. They had opportunities with men on base and made some hard contact, but they couldn’t find grass. In the second, Rowdy Tellez tagged a River Ryan curveball, but Lux was able to make a leaping grab at second and double off Joey Bart at first base. In Tellez’s next at-bat, he crushed a ball to center, but Kevin Kiermaier made the grab while running into the wall.

But perhaps their best chance came in the sixth, when they put the first two runners on base and Bart blistered a ball that should have brought home at least one. Instead, Kiké Hernández was able to snare it, and the Pirates would end up coming up empty that frame.

“They made really good defensive plays tonight,” Shelton said. “That ended up being the difference in the game."

When it rains, it pours. And when hits don’t drop, well, they don’t drop.

“We have to rebound,” Shelton said. “We need that ball to fall. We need that ball that Joey hit to fall. And we're going to get it. We've just got to keep going."

This being just a road bump for Skenes would certainly be one way to get the team going again, and he already seemed ready to move on from this outing.

"Just looking at it as objectively as possible, obviously the line wasn't fantastic, but there was a lot of good, I thought,” Skenes said. “Honestly, a lot of the pitches I didn't execute as well as I could have or should have ended up as outs. That's kinda how it goes a lot of the time. I'm not going to lose any sleep over the hits that they got, or the home run. They're good hitters. Sometimes, they're just gonna get the pitches that other teams haven't been getting to. I just gotta keep playing my game."

Hey, at least he gets a little home cooking this week.

"It's cool,” Skenes said with a grin. “Cool stadium. Nice to be in California weather again."