Pirates, Brewers box score drew attention
- Paul Skenes and the Pirates, not a prospect cameo, drove the attention: Pittsburgh beat Milwaukee 6-0 on April 24 as Skenes carried perfection into the seventh. - Skenes retired his first 20 Brewers, finished with seven scoreless innings, one hit and seven strikeouts, and Konnor Griffin added his first career homer on his 20th birthday. - The buzz followed an ace, not a debut rumor: Skenes has a 0.95 ERA over his last five starts. (mlb.com)
The box score that got passed around was Paul Skenes’ latest start, not a prospect sighting: the Pirates beat the Brewers 6-0 on Friday, April 24. (mlb.com) (espn.com) Skenes retired the first 20 Milwaukee hitters before Jake Bauers singled with two outs in the seventh inning at American Family Field. He finished with 7.0 innings, one hit, no walks and seven strikeouts. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The final line in the box score was stark: Pittsburgh six runs, nine hits and no errors; Milwaukee no runs, one hit and two errors. The game lasted 2 hours, 19 minutes in front of 33,339. (baseball-reference.com) (espn.com) Konnor Griffin supplied another line that stood out. The Pirates shortstop hit his first career home run in the third inning, on his 20th birthday, and drove in three runs. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The social-media confusion came from the setup: fans were looking at a Pirates-Brewers box score and reading it as if it might involve a new call-up. The actual headline was that Skenes, already Pittsburgh’s ace, was one out from completing 20 perfect outs. (mlb.com 1) (mlb.com 2) That outing also fit his April trend. After allowing five earned runs on Opening Day against the Mets, Skenes posted a 0.95 earned run average over his next five starts, and his season ERA sat at 2.48 after Milwaukee. (mlb.com) (espn.com) The rest of the weekend changed the framing again. Milwaukee won the series finale 5-0 on Sunday, April 26, but Pittsburgh still took two of three at American Family Field. (mlb.com) So the box score people kept sharing was memorable for what it already showed in plain sight: Skenes overpowering the Brewers and Griffin announcing himself with his first homer. (mlb.com) (baseball-reference.com)
