PIRATES

When a team's losing streak gets to the point in which it spans a trip through nearly the entire starting rotation, it's ordinarily the job of the staff ace to stop the bleeding. 

The Pirates needed theirs to serve as a stopper on this particular day, but Paul Skenes was unable to deliver, allowing two first-inning home runs and five total runs (four earned) in a 10-5 loss to the Cardinals that finished off a sweep for the visitors and extended the home team's skid to five games at PNC Park. 

"Just didn't have the best command of everything in those first couple innings," said Skenes, who ultimately gave up eight hits and struck out nine over five innings. "Settled in a little bit and they did a pretty good job the last few innings. Just had to grind through it."

Skenes admitted he didn't really feel a ton of pressure to be the one to stop the losing streak. He knows every team is going to go through stretches like this and that this group needs to get back to who they are. But his focus was simply on executing pitches, as is the case heading into every outing. 

The execution wasn't exactly there, though, on this day. Skenes' first-inning troubles were due in part to falling behind both JJ Wetherholt and Jordan Walker. He threw a 2-0 fastball up in the zone to Wetherholt, who sent a ball into the seats above the Clemente Wall for a leadoff homer: 

Then he fell behind 2-1 to Walker before leaving a sweeper on the inner half of the plate. Walker didn't miss it, sending it into the seats in left field for a two-run shot: 

"Leadoff, getting behind 2-0, J.J. got a hold of that one," Don Kelly said. "Just didn't seem like he had the command and the stuff that typically does have."

This isn't the first time Skenes has run into trouble right out of the gate. Remember that infamous opening day start in New York when Skenes allowed five earned runs and didn't make it out of the first inning? That certainly wasn't all on him, but it seems as if the first is the only inning in which Skenes has had issues this season. He's now allowed nine earned runs in the first inning of a game this season. To put that into perspective, he's allowed 13 total runs (12 earned) over his seven starts. 

Skenes' struggles while battling from behind didn't stop there, though. In the third, Alec Burleson reached on a single and an error, leading to Nolan Gorman having a run-scoring opportunity with two outs. Skenes got behind 2-0, got a swinging strike on a changeup and then left a 97 mph fastball down the middle. Gorman capitalized on the advantage he had in a hitter's count, sending an RBI single into right field for a four-run lead. Skenes also allowed a run on an RBI single by Burleson in the fifth, finishing with 102 pitches and ending a streak of five consecutive starts with four-plus innings pitched and one or fewer runs allowed. 

"It's pretty difficult when you sit there and you're saying 'Oh, he struggled' and he gave up three (in the first inning)," Brandon Lowe said. "It's just kind of one of the things that we've been lucky to be playing behind. We've gotten so accustomed to him just throwing seven shutout and us going about our business. But it's one of those things that he's going to pick us up more often than not. On these days that maybe he doesn't have the A+ stuff he usually has, we need to come and try to pick him up. Fell a little short today, but I have no doubt that next time Paul toes that rubber, he's going to come out with his best stuff, and we won't be talking, 'What could we have done?' We'll be talking about how good he was."