Pirates Series Takeaways: Skenes Not Invincible, Lineup Construction, Rookie Intrigue

The Pittsburgh Pirates will have a happy flight back into the United States ahead of Memorial Day after salvaging their series against the Toronto Blue Jays with a much-needed win on Sunday.

It was a successful start to the road trip for the Pirates after they took two of three from the St. Louis Cardinals, but things quickly soured with unceremonious losses in each of the first two games in Toronto.

Playing .500 ball on the road isn’t the worst thing, but the Pirates were surely hoping for another series win in Toronto.

Here are three takeaways from three games north of the border.

Jays Get to Skenes

Paul Skenes allowed a career-high nine hits and only struck out two batters while allowing four runs in five-plus innings en route to his second straight loss.

Skenes was ambushed to lead off the bottom of the first when George Springer homered to left field on an 0-2 pitch that was up out of the zone. He then cruised through the next four innings, but Toronto opened the sixth inning with four straight hits off Skenes to knock him out of the game.

Over his last two starts, Skenes has been charged with nine earned runs on 15 hits in 10 innings. Despite the recent rough patch, the right-hander still owns a healthy 3.00 ERA and leads all MLB starters in WHIP (0.817).

Skenes is not pitching poorly this year by any means. In fact, prior to his last two starts, one could argue he was pitching better than he had at any point in his young career, which is high praise considering that in two full years as a big-leaguer he’s already been Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young winner.

There’s no reason to worry about the staff ace, but, the Pirates need Skenes to get back to what he’s been for essentially all of his career. His next outing will be on Thursday, the finale of a four-game series with the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park.

It just goes to show you how hard this sport is, and even the best of the best can look pedestrian at times.

Lineup Change?

Spencer Horwitz hit leadoff for the Pirates in Sunday’s finale, a role he had for much of last season. He made quite the impression by homering on the first pitch of the game from Blue Jays starter Dylan Cease.

I think Sunday’s decision should be a more permanent one — it’s time to move Horwitz back to the leadoff spot for the foreseeable future.

The 28-year-old almost always provides a quality at-bat. He has more walks (25) this season than strikeouts (24), and his .381 on-base percentage is 10th in the National League at the conclusion of Sunday’s win.

In moving Horwitz up to the top of the lineup, the Pirates can slide Oneil Cruz down to the middle to not only try and get him back on track, but put him in a role that will allow him to be in a spot where he can be more of a run-producing threat.

Cruz in the leadoff spot just hasn’t been working of late, and after striking out two more times on Sunday, he leads baseball with 84 in 232 trips to the plate (36.2% K%). Take some pressure off him and bat him in the middle of the order, like they did on Sunday. Although he struck out twice from the fifth spot of the lineup, Cruz hit his 11th home run of the season, which was only his second this month.

Cruz has been slumping for the better part of the last month. Since April 24, he’s batting .224 (24 for 107) and has a 38.3% strikeout rate in 26 games. Horwitz has been scorching. Over his last 18 games, he’s hitting .322 (19 for 59).

A lineup shakeup is what’s best for the team right now, and probably best for Cruz for a number of reasons.

2 New Faces

It’s far too soon to tell if Jhostynxon Garcia and Esmerlyn Valdez will be valuable contributors in both the short-term and long-term. But both players have an interesting skillset and deserve playing time until Ryan O’Hearn returns from the injured list.

Garcia started the first two games of the series and reached base three times (two singles and a walk). He also came in as a defensive replacement in Sunday’s win in center field, a spot he’s capable of manning. Garcia hasn’t shown much power yet, but through his first five games with the Pirates, he’s batting .294 (5 for 17).

Valdez, meanwhile, made his MLB debut on Friday night and went 0 for 3 with a walk. He didn’t get his first hit until Sunday, but it was worth the wait.

With the Pirates ahead 2-1 in the sixth inning, Valdez showcased his power to all fields by hitting an important two-run home run to right field off right-handed reliever Chase Lee.

It could be tough to carve out consistent playing time for both given a crowded mix of outfielders, but I’d like to see more of both guys over the next couple weeks as much as possible.

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