Six weeks without a win
Paul Skenes has not been credited with a victory since July 19. He takes the ball again on Tuesday night as Pittsburgh open a six-game homestand against San Francisco, and the number beside his name still reads 9-11 with a 3.79 ERA.
That record undersells him. The Pirates won each of his last two starts, including a 1-0 result at San Diego last Tuesday in which Skenes threw six shutout innings and got nothing on the ledger for it.
Pittsburgh arrive at 67-71 with two straight wins and a thin grip on the fringe of the National League race. Five wins in these six games against the Giants and the Angels would drag them back to .500. Skenes is scheduled to start twice on the homestand.
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One meeting, two years ago, and nobody left
Skenes has faced San Francisco exactly once. It was the third start of his career, on 23 May 2024, and he held the Giants to a single run over six innings before handing the bullpen a 5-1 lead. San Francisco came back and won 7-6.
Almost nothing survives from that afternoon. Skenes drew an opener that day in Erik Miller. Not one of the 19 Giants who appeared in the game will be active on Tuesday.
The velocity questions that followed him through the summer have not gone away either. “You also have to understand what’s in your control and what’s not in your control,” he told reporters last week. “My next outing, I could be 95-97 again. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it.”
The Giants are playing better than their record
San Francisco sit 57-81 and have won five of their last eight, including two against playoff-chasing Arizona at home and a 7-3 win in Atlanta on Monday in a make-up game. Eight of their nine starting position players reached base in that one. Rafael Devers hit his 30th homer of the season in the first inning, and in-season call-ups Osleivis Basabe and Jonah Cox both went deep behind him.
“The young guys have brought a lot of energy,” manager Tony Vitello said. “Raffy’s kinda helped lead them, but he’s also kinda feeding off their energy.”
Logan Webb answers for the Giants, a fellow three-time All-Star at 8-8 with a 3.72 ERA. Strip out the five runs Boston put on him at Fenway last month and he allowed four runs across 26 innings in his other four August starts. He owns a 2.37 ERA in five career outings against Pittsburgh.
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