The Toronto Blue Jays had their way with Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes on Saturday.
George Springer hit a leadoff home run, which started what would be an offensive outburst against the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner. The Blue Jays finished the game recording nine hits, which was the most Skenes has ever allowed, according to Sportsnet Stats.
“Blue Jays collect 9 hits Saturday vs Paul Skenes. It’s his career-high for hits allowed in a start,” Sportsnet Stats posted on X.
Along with the Blue Jays recording nine hits, Springer and Jesus Sanchez became the only two players to have two+ extra base hits against Skenes in the same game. Springer had a home run and a double, while Sanchez had two doubles.
It was a stellar game from the Blue Jays’ bats, as Skenes finished the game going 5+ innings, allowing 4 runs on 9 hits, while he also struck out just two batters, which was a rough outing for him. Toronto ended up winning the game 5-2, to hand Skenes another loss.
After the outing on Saturday, Skenes is now 6-4 with a 3.00 ERA in 11 starts this season.
Skenes Credits Blue Jays
Following his rough outing, Skenes had nothing but praise for the Blue Jays hitter.
Skenes felt like he did himself a disservice by not getting ahead in the counts, but he felt like Toronto did well.
“(The Blue Jays) did a good job today. Watching a couple of the pitches, just kind of got to tip your cap,” Skenes said. … There was good and bad. I need to get ahead in counts. I wasn’t super unhappy with some of the execution on some of the pitches. But could have executed a number of them better. I’ll have to rewatch (the game) again. But I think similar to last week (against the Philadelphia Phillies), probably not as bad as the line would suggest.”
As for how Skenes can rebound after the outing against Toronto, he believes it’s a small adjustment and is confident he will be better in his next outing.
“Just executing a little bit better. I feel like a lot of them (pitches) weren’t poorly executed necessarily, but could have been better executed, so just gotta throw a ball higher or a ball lower or a ball more in or out or something like that,” Skenes said.
Skenes has the second-best odds to win the NL Cy Young Award, despite a frustrating start.
John Schneider Impressed With Lineup
Entering Saturday’s game, Blue Jays manager John Schneider knew it wouldn’t be easy against Skenes.
“This is a hard-hat day,” manager John Schneider said prior to the 5-2 win. “This is a Don Mattingly ‘hard-hat and lunch-pail’ day. He liked to call it that.”
However, after the win, Schneider was impressed with the lineup and how they were able to hit around the star pitcher.
“That was pretty relentless,” Schneider said. “It’s not easy to rack up nine hits off of him and keep your strikeouts down, too.”
Toronto will look for the series sweep against the Pirates on Sunday afternoon.
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