The Toronto Blue Jays will be out for a series win Saturday afternoon when they face the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates and their ace Paul Skenes.
Winners of three in a row, the Blue Jays took advantage of three errors by the Pirates on Friday night to record a 6-2 victory in the opener of the three-game series.
Skenes (6-3, 2.62 ERA) had his 20-inning scoreless inning snapped on Sunday in a 6-0 setback to the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Phillies’ fifth inning started with a leadoff walk after Skenes had gone five straight starts without allowing one.
“I just didn’t execute the pitches,” Skenes said after the loss. “You’ve got to execute in the zone in the big leagues. Leadoff walks are tough a lot of the time. You can’t walk him there. You never want to walk the leadoff guy. Just got to execute.”
The right-hander has faced the Blue Jays once in his career, posting a 3.00 ERA without a decision.
Patrick Corbin (1-1, 4.23) is slated to start for Toronto. The left-hander is 6-4 with a 3.50 ERA in 15 career starts against the Pirates.
Pirates starter Bubba Chandler struck out a career-best 11 batters over five innings while giving up just two hits on Friday. Two errors in the third inning led to the three runs (one earned) that he allowed, however.
“In that inning where we didn’t play really good defense, he did a really good job of slowing things down and staying in attack mode,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said.
Said Chandler: “Happy about the performance, but the game was in my hands and I let it slip away.”
Pittsburgh saw its two-game winning streak come to a halt on Friday.
The Pirates promoted outfielder Esmerlyn Valdez, from Triple-A Indianapolis on Friday. Valdez, 22, played right field and was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and a walk.
“He faced some good (pitchers) tonight, and I thought he had the good walk and swung the bat pretty well,” Kelly said. “To get the first one out of the way, to get the jitters out, (he will) be ready to roll tomorrow.”
Outfielder Billy Cook was optioned to Triple-A to make room for him.
Valdez’s walk was the only one allowed by Toronto starter Kevin Gausman, who yielded one run and struck out eight in 6 2/3 innings to earn the win.
Louis Varland recorded a six-out save on Friday. That means he is unlikely to be available on Saturday.
There was some gushing over the three runs Toronto tacked on against struggling Pittsburgh reliever Dennis Santana in the eighth. Tack-on runs have been scarce for Toronto this season.
“That was a big inning, adding on,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “We were really light in the bullpen today anyways, so that was good to see. We had a couple of big swings early, then took advantage of some of their mistakes. The eighth inning, that was nice.”
Toronto had only five hits, but two were two-run doubles — one by George Springer (in the eighth) and rookie Yohendrick Pinango (in the third).
Pittsburgh’s Brandon Lowe enjoyed success against Toronto when he was with the Tampa Bay Rays. It continued Friday when he was 2-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored.
In 74 career games against Toronto, Lowe is batting .273/.359/.572 with 10 doubles, three triples, 21 home runs and 56 RBIs.
–Field Level Media
