Bean-Eaten

 

It sounds like the most David vs. Goliath thing ever. A big series in Boston that the Red Sox are desperate to win to stay ahead of the Yankees in the standings, against one of the worst teams in baseball, the Pittsburgh Pirates. This is not the series you want to get caught sleeping on, and yet the Sox have already dropped two games. At home. 

And only one of them was a Skenes start.

That's the thing that kinda shocked me. Last night was a Skenes start, but it was also the Sox putting up Payton Tolle, a schtarker of a pitching prospect with some serious promise, against a team that looked like a gimme of a debut. Truthfully, Tolle didn't do too badly, only giving up 2 earned runs and striking out 8. But any team against Paul Skenes is gonna have to do a lot of work. Skenes gave up 7 hits and only 1 guy got home. His ERA remains at 2.05, and his Ks grow to 187, which honestly feels like restraint. There's a lot of Skenes copycats out there, young fireballers that teams are using to say 'we've got one too', and most of them just aren't stacking up. Misiorowski comes close, Rhett Lowder, when healthy, comes close, but Skenes is just unstoppable, and this Cy Young solidified what everyone already knew, that he's just on a completely different level from everyone else.

But pitching is only one factor. Having a good Paul Skenes start, and a comeback performance from Johan Oviedo, wasn't the problem. The problem is how can this team outhit everybody else? And somehow, the Pirates have been outhitting the Sox. Both games have featured star performances from Tommy Pham and Andrew McCutchen, two guys in their 30s. Today's game had a barrage of runs from the core, including a homer from Oneil Cruz, an RBI from Bryan Reynolds, and some small-ball from Spencer Horwitz. This is not a terrific lineup, and there's a lot of guys playing solely because there aren't better options, but right now they're outhitting the Sox. Which is insane.

The Pirates have won 8 of their last 10 games, are getting better production from Jared Triolo and Henry Davis, have seen incredible progress from long-man Bubba Chandler, and, most importantly, have a rotation plan of Skenes-Keller-Burrows-Ashcraft-Oviedo that could keep them moving forward. Yes, somebody could get dealt, and Skenes isn't looking long for this club, but a working 5 seemed so distant and now here it is. 

I'm not saying that something's clicked for good, and seeing as the Dodgers are up next it'd take a miracle to get past them with their dignity intact. But after really struggling all season, the Pirates are at least ending the season on a much more confident, and optimistic, note than the heat of the season would have you believe. And this happening at Boston's expense is the icing on the cake.

Coming Tomorrow- This has been a season of pivotal rookies in Sacramento. Here's one you don't hear about as much.