SI

Pirates Roasted for Posting Paul Skenes Complete Game Graphic After Loss to Phillies

Paul Skenes got his first complete game on Sunday, but he probably would have preferred to get the win.

Tyler Lauletta

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes walks to the dugout.
Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes walks to the dugout. / David Dermer-Imagn Images
In this story:

The Philadelphia Phillies completed a three-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, handing their in-state rivals their fifth loss in their past six games.

The Pirates’ loss came despite having ace pitcher Paul Skenes on the mound, and going up against Phillies rookie Mick Abel, who was making the first MLB start of his career.

While Skenes was his usual dominant self, striking out nine and allowing just three hits over eight innings, it wasn’t enough, with a Phillies run scored on a fielder’s choice in the fourth inning proving all Philadelphia needed to secure a 1–0 win.

After the game, the Pirates’ social media team posted a graphic celebrating Skenes’ dominant outing, which was also the first complete game of his young career, despite the loss.

It was just the second complete game loss a pitcher has delivered since 2016.

Pirates fans were, understandably, frustrated.

Not just with the team’s decision to celebrate Skenes in the graphic, but that they did so while the Pirates have done so little to form a winning team around their young, generational pitcher.

Skenes’s rookie season last year was one of the best the sport of baseball has ever seen from a pitcher. He showed everything a team could possibly hope for in a franchise cornerstone. But the Pirates faced some pretty heavy scrutiny over the offseason when they kept their wallets relatively shut and did not make any major moves to bolster the roster.

When the result is the team’s young ace putting up one of the best games of his career and still getting hit with a loss, it’s not hard to see why fans are upset.

Skenes has seven quality starts on the year thus far, putting him behind only Zach Wheeler and Hunter Brown in the stat. Despite that, he has just three wins, putting him in a 55-way tie for 49th in the majors.

More MLB on Sports Illustrated

feed

Published
Tyler Lauletta
TYLER LAULETTA

Tyler Lauletta is a staff writer for the Breaking and Trending News Team/team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI, he covered sports for nearly a decade at Business Insider, and helped design and launch the OffBall newsletter. He is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia, and remains an Eagles and Phillies sicko. When not watching or blogging about sports, Tyler can be found scratching his dog behind the ears.

Home/MLB