Cubs solve Skenes, belt 4 home runs in win over Pirates
PITTSBURGH — Paul Skenes made his much anticipated major-league debut against the Cubs nearly a year ago on May 11, 2024. Six days later, he faced them again at Wrigley Field and tossed 6 hitless innings with 11 strikeouts.
The Cubs went 1-3 in the four games they faced Skenes last season, which meant they were in real danger of losing the series to the Pirates when he took the mound Thursday afternoon at PNC Park.
This time the Cubs got off to a slow start, then hit 3 home runs in the fifth inning against last year's NL Rookie of the Year, on the way to an 8-3 victory.
Dansby Swanson, Kyle Tucker and Seiya Suzuki hit the 3 fifth-inning homers off Skenes to erase a 2-0 deficit, then Suzuki added a second homer to pad the lead later on against a reliever.
“I thought the whole game, we did an excellent job against Skenes,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “We were patient, we took good at-bats. Very good job by the offense. Two strikeouts on a day Paul Skenes starts, that's a good day.”
Skenes had given up just 1 home run all season, and also 4 walks. But the Cubs drew 4 walks before they started launching balls into the seats.
According to Statcast, Skenes' fastball peaked at 99.6 mph early in the game, but he threw the four-seam just 29% of the time, going heavy with the sweeper and splitter. Counsell thought being patient at the plate paid dividends in the fifth inning.
“He definitely went to off-speed more today and we did a really nice job of not swinging,” Counsell said. “You get the hard throwers and you think you have to cheat to the fastball and we still laid off the off-speed. That's not easy to do. Maybe the things we did earlier helped us wear him out a little bit later.”
Skenes, a Southern California native, was coming off a strong performance at Dodger Stadium in his last outing, tossing six scoreless innings.
“(Cubs hitters) fouled off some good pitches, hit some good pitches,” Skenes said. “I’ve just got to execute better.”
Suzuki, meanwhile, has been on a power surge. He's up to 9 home runs on the season, one short of the MLB lead, and has hit 5 in the past 10 games. When Thursday's contest ended, he ranked fifth in OPS among qualified hitters, trailing only Aaron Judge, Pete Alonso, Pavin Smith and Fernando Tatis.
“I'm not a home run hitter, I'm not out there trying to hit home runs,” Suzuki said through translator Edwin Stanberry. “So the fact that I hit two in one game is a miracle.”
Suzuki was being needlessly modest. This was his fifth multihomer game since moving to MLB from Japan. He seems to have benefited from hitting next to Tucker in the lineup, which was the Cubs' hope when the season began.
“He's a strong man,” Counsell said of Suzuki. “He's got a beautiful swing and he's a strong man.”
Cubs starter Colin Rea gave up a couple of early runs, but completed 6 innings to get his second win of the season and keep his ERA at an impressive 1.46.
The Cubs have another important NL Central series this weekend in Milwaukee. The series begins Friday with Ben Brown facing Cary-Grove High School graduate Quinn Priester.
Before the game the Pirates read a statement from chairman Bob Nutting about the fan who was severely injured falling out of the stands in right field during Wednesday's game. There wasn't much of an update Thursday other than a report the spectator suffered a skull fracture.