Skenes pitched five scoreless innings in a 1-0 loss to the Mariners today at T-Mobile Park, striking out 10 while allowing five hits and no walks, his start cut off at 78 pitches because of an arranged program to reduce his workload around the All-Star break. And, as ever, he'd receive next to nothing from the offense, which was shut out for all three games of this Seattle sweep and now has been blanked 14 times, most in Major League Baseball.
"It’s baseball," Isiah Kiner-Falefa would tell me afterward. "So, hopefully, we just get back on another streak. It's not what we envisioned but I think we just stick to it. As fast as we flipped things around over there, we could do it again. So just gotta stay within ourselves. The hardest thing is going to be keep trusting.We just have to keep trusting it. We can’t lose faith."
This was new, though: The Pirates were fresh off a series back home in which their pitchers shut out the Cardinals in all three games, meaning this marked the first time in history any team was shut out in a series of three-plus games right after shutting out another team in a series of three-plus games.
• Lost three in a row • 12-32 away from PNC Park • 26-27 under Kelly
► THE NUMBER
6: Consecutive games in which the Pirates have participated in a shutout, tied for the longest such streak in baseball history with the 1953 Senators, the 1949 White Sox, the 1919 Cubs and the National League champion 1903 Pirates, per Sarah Langs
► THE NEXT THREE
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THE ASYLUM
Dejan Kovacevic
4:23 pm - 07.06.2025SEATTLEMariners 1, Pirates 0: Offense flips script back to awful
On the day Paul Skenes was named the Pirates' lone All-Star, both he and his team's offense showed why.
Skenes pitched five scoreless innings in a 1-0 loss to the Mariners today at T-Mobile Park, striking out 10 while allowing five hits and no walks, his start cut off at 78 pitches because of an arranged program to reduce his workload around the All-Star break. And, as ever, he'd receive next to nothing from the offense, which was shut out for all three games of this Seattle sweep and now has been blanked 14 times, most in Major League Baseball.
"It’s baseball," Isiah Kiner-Falefa would tell me afterward. "So, hopefully, we just get back on another streak. It's not what we envisioned but I think we just stick to it. As fast as we flipped things around over there, we could do it again. So just gotta stay within ourselves. The hardest thing is going to be keep trusting.We just have to keep trusting it. We can’t lose faith."
This was new, though: The Pirates were fresh off a series back home in which their pitchers shut out the Cardinals in all three games, meaning this marked the first time in history any team was shut out in a series of three-plus games right after shutting out another team in a series of three-plus games.
► THE COVERAGE
From our staff on the scene:
• DK: Skenes' star shines again
• DK: Pitch limits not an issue
• Staff Snaps: The new waterfront
• Minors: Barco revving it up
• Minors: Florentino homers twice
► THE HIGHLIGHTS
► MORE POSTGAME VIDEO
• Manager: Kelly's press conference
• Players: Inside the clubhouse
► THE BOXSCORE
► MORE GAME DATA
• Hitter breakdowns
• Pitcher breakdowns
• Updated statistics
• Season schedule
► THE TRENDS
• Lost three in a row
• 12-32 away from PNC Park
• 26-27 under Kelly
► THE NUMBER
6: Consecutive games in which the Pirates have participated in a shutout, tied for the longest such streak in baseball history with the 1953 Senators, the 1949 White Sox, the 1919 Cubs and the National League champion 1903 Pirates, per Sarah Langs
► THE NEXT THREE
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