LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul Skenes and his parents got a suite at Dodger Stadium on Friday night and handed out tickets for about 35 aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.
“I was playing for free tonight,” he joked.
Seemed like everybody Skenes knows from back home wanted to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 22-year-old ace from nearby Orange County when he took the mound against the Los Angeles Dodgers and their own top pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Between Yamamoto’s brilliance, the powerhouse lineup sent out by the defending World Series champions and the pressure of wanting to perform for his family and friends, this showdown might have been one of the most challenging nights of Skenes’ incredible young career.
He responded with poise and tenacity — and six pitches that seem to get better every month.
Skenes outdueled Yamamoto, pitching five-hit ball into the seventh inning on a career-high 108 pitches.
He retired Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts three times apiece, and he stranded Freddie Freeman after both of his hits.
Skenes (3-2) got the victory in , racking up nine strikeouts with no walks.
A pitcher who has the entire sport’s attention put together a night his family won’t soon forget. Although he wasn’t overly thrilled by the finer details of his performance, even Skenes couldn’t deny he got the job done.
“Even when you execute pitches, they’re still going to find ways to get on,” Skenes said. “I definitely executed better today than the other two times I faced them, but that’s just kind of the nature of it. They’re really good hitters. You just have to find ways to get through innings.”
Skenes did it repeatedly, and his escapes from the fourth and fifth innings were remarkable.
Freeman ended up on third leading off the fourth when Bryan Reynolds had trouble tracking down the slugger’s double to right. Skenes induced a short groundout from Teoscar Hernández, struck out Tommy Edman and got Will Smith to fly out.
“I think you saw why Paul Skenes is who Paul Skenes is,” Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said. “Because to go through where he went at in their order and come out with a zero is extremely impressive.”
Skenes then gave up a two-out double to Andy Pages in the fifth, bringing up Ohtani. He even fell behind 3-1 in the count, but Skenes got Ohtani to foul off a splitter before he whiffed the three-time MVP with a diabolically good curve.
When asked where he found the confidence to throw those two breaking balls, Skenes shrugged.
“It’s not ideal to go down 3-1 against probably the best hitter in the game, but what do I have to lose?” he asked. “Literally, just what do I have to lose? Let’s see what we’re made of, and see how my stuff is. If he’s supposed to get out, he’ll get out. That at-bat, I was all over the place. A couple of terrible pitches. But you’ve just got to hunker down and execute in those situations.”
Shelton even allowed Skenes to go out for the seventh, but just for one batter. He struck out Smith with a splitter that broke like a Frisbee and then left the mound to appreciative cheers from his family — and even many Dodgers fans.
“I think that he’s one of the best in the game, and when he needed a strikeout, he did it in that one inning,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. “He finds a way to limit damage. He kept us off balance with his off-speed stuff, the sweeper, the splinker, obviously the fastball is 97, 98. … We really couldn’t muster much.”
Yamamoto had been arguably the majors’ best pitcher over the last month, entering the night with an 0.93 ERA after allowing no earned runs in three straight starts.
But not much went smoothly for Yamamoto against the Pirates, who strung together two rallies — the second abetted by Max Muncy’s throwing error, which eventually led to two unearned runs in the fifth.
Pittsburgh’s five hits off Yamamoto were all singles, but he also issued four walks — two in his 32-pitch first inning. While Yamamoto eventually settled in with an impressive mix of pitches, his teammates couldn’t help him out.
“I think if you like pitching, you saw two guys with a lot of pitches today with the ability to execute them,” Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said. “It was a fun game to watch if you like pitching.”
Skenes will get to savor this win a bit more than the others: He already got family time Friday several hours before he took the mound, and he planned to meet up with everybody afterward as well.
“Today was kind of a family get-together,” he said. “It was all my mom’s brothers and my dad’s brother, and their families are all here, which is cool. Hasn’t happened for a while, so it’s cool to be able to share that with them.”
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