Rain cuts Skenes' gem short on his bobblehead day, then Bucs drop marathon to Rays

PITTSBURGH -- It was just after 2 p.m. Saturday afternoon and the queue to enter PNC Park had stretched across the entirety of the Roberto Clemente Bridge into downtown Pittsburgh.

Paul Skenes was 90 minutes away from making his fifth start of the season on his own bobblehead day at the park. While the two events aligning on the same day were entirely coincidental, it made the afternoon that much more special in the early innings.

The 23-year-old delivered four scoreless frames in Pittsburgh’s 13-inning, 8-7 loss to the Rays before a rain delay went into effect with two outs in the bottom of the fourth inning. Skenes was removed from the game following the nearly 2 1/2-hour delay.

Skenes struck out five and didn't walk anybody on 64 pitches (43 strikes). He’s now allowed just three runs in his last 21 1/3 innings.

“Yeah, I felt good,” Skenes said. “Short outing, but felt like the execution was pretty good.”

Skenes didn't get off to the cleanest of starts, but quickly found his footing. In the second inning, he allowed a leadoff single to Jake Fraley, before Cedric Mullins reached on a catcher’s interference and Richie Palacios singled to right. After a runner’s interference, Skenes struck out Taylor Walls looking and got Chandler Simpson to ground out to first to end the threat after a 28-pitch effort.

While he escaped the threat unharmed, the inning slowed the pace of the game and the Pirates weren't able to get through the mandatory four and 1/2 innings for the game to become official.

“I wasn't thinking about the weather,” Skenes said. “It was just frustrating that it took so long. But [I] came back and had a couple good innings after that.”

Skenes then needed just 25 pitches to get through the third and fourth innings combined.

“I don't even know where to start,” manager Don Kelly said. “I mean, Paul pitched really well, I thought.”

In the bottom of the first inning, Bryan Reynolds reached via a two-out walk before Ryan O’Hearn drilled a two-run home run into the right-field seats. Two innings later, Marcell Ozuna hammered a two-run blast, his second this week, to pad Pittsburgh’s lead.

Following Skenes’ departure, the Rays jumped on Pittsburgh’s middle relievers. Cam Sanders and Evan Sisk quickly surrendered the lead in the top of the fifth, allowing a combined five earned runs on five hits, shifting the momentum to Tampa Bay in the blink of an eye.

Still, the Pirates fought to come back from multiple deficits. Trailing by one with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning, Nick Yorke served a 3-2 fastball on the inside part of the plate on a line into right field, scoring Brandon Lowe from second base to tie the game.

The Pirates went down by a run once again in the top of the eleventh inning. Walls scored all the way from first base on an errant pickoff attempt by Yohan Ramírez, but Pittsburgh found a way to equalize as Konnor Griffin drove in Yorke with a fielder’s choice.

Eventually, the Pirates simply ran out of steam.

“Had a bunch of guys come through when we needed them to,” Skenes said. “Obviously, we didn't get that final blow, but [our] pitchers did what they needed to down the stretch and [our] hitters put some good at-bats together. Yohan picked everybody up. Obviously, he got the loss, but he did more than I think anybody was expecting him to. Had a lot of guys step up and put us in a good position for tomorrow.”

The sound of Mullins’ 13th-inning two-run blast clanking off of the plastic seats beyond the right-field wall echoed throughout the stadium. After playing catch-up for the innings prior, the long home run was too much to come back from.

“Any loss you have, especially like that one, is tough,” Kelly said. “ … I mean we had chances, we had opportunity to win the game, just couldn't come up with that big hit.”