Paul Skenes almost always gives the Pittsburgh Pirates a favorable chance to win when he takes the mound.
However, for more than a month, the Pirates haven’t posted a victory when the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner has pitched.
They will try to change that trend on Friday night when Skenes and the Pirates host the Cincinnati Reds to open a three-game series.
Skenes (6-7, 2.86 ERA) will oppose Reds left-hander Andrew Abbott (5-4, 3.83).
The Pirates have lost the past seven times that Skenes started.
The right-hander hasn’t been terrible during that span, but not great by his standards, going 0-5 with a 4.03 ERA over 38 innings while striking out 51 and issuing 11 walks.
In his most recent outing, on Saturday at Colorado, Skenes faced the last team he defeated on May 12 after carrying a no-hitter into the seventh inning. In the rematch, Skenes allowed two runs on four hits and two walks and struck out eight over six innings, but the Pirates lost 2-1.
Skenes has allowed two runs in six innings in each of his past three starts.
He has never lost against the Reds, going 5-0 with a 0.53 ERA in six career starts, including an 8-3 win on April 1 in Cincinnati. Skenes struck out five and allowed one run on three hits and two walks over five innings that day.
“It’s a fickle game,” Skenes said following his latest outing. “It’s just how it is. You’ve got to look at what’s real, what’s not real. It’s just being objective. Feelings get in the way of winning. If you get emotional, you start trying harder to do stuff you don’t need to be doing when you’re in a game, and over the course of a season, too.”
The Reds are 1-5 this season against the Pirates, and they are 7-14 this month. Cincinnati is heading into a stretch in which 13 of its next 19 games are against division opponents, and the Reds are a woeful 2-16 versus NL Central teams.
Although Cincinnati has fallen to last place in the division, the Reds continue to express their commitment to battle back into contention.
“Ultimately, we can’t feel sorry for ourselves. Good baseball could be right around the corner and we’ve just got to keep showing up every single day playing hard, never give up,” Cincinnati pitcher Rhett Lowder said on Wednesday. “That’s how we should approach it as a team. Get punched in the face, and then you just gotta get back up. There’s way too many games left to just give up.”
Abbott will try to help the Reds snap a three-game skid after they were swept by the visiting Milwaukee Brewers to open the week.
The 27-year-old Virginia native is 2-1 with a 3.92 ERA in four career starts against the Pirates, but he took the loss in his head-to-head matchup with Skenes on April 1. Abbott allowed four runs on five hits and three walks while striking out five in 5 2/3 innings.
Abbott won his most recent start, when he allowed one run on five hits and three walks and struck out six over five innings in a 10-2 victory over the New York Yankees.
Rookie Sal Stewart went 2-for-4 with an RBI in the series finale against Milwaukee, a 6-5 Cincinnati loss. He leads the Reds with 14 home runs and 55 RBIs.
–Field Level Media
