LOS ANGELES -- The start of Saturday’s game could not have gone much better for the Pirates. They scored three runs off Tarik Skubal in the first. Jared Jones buzzed through a stacked Dodgers lineup while pitching in his hometown ballpark for the first time.
Despite plenty of momentum early, it was the rest of the game that gave Pittsburgh trouble and ultimately led to a 4-3 loss Saturday at Dodger Stadium, the Pirates ceding this series to the home team and backing them into a corner when it comes to needing wins on this road trip.
While the Pirates had success against Skubal early, that went away over the bulk of his start, the Dodgers lefty retiring 18 of the final 19 Pirates he faced and striking out 11. Only one of those balls put in play reached the outfield.
"He's not a two-time Cy Young winner on accident," Bryan Reynolds said. "We did good damage. Scoring three runs off a guy like that is pretty good. Obviously, we would have liked to have scored more after putting up three in the first, but we didn't."
Pirates manager Don Kelly thought Skubal was able to adjust and started establishing his fastball at the top of the zone, throwing a bunch of changeups and sliders off of it that gave the Pirates trouble.
It led to seven innings of three-run ball for Skubal, who walked just one. The two-time AL Cy Young Award winner tossed 106 pitches, 74 for strikes and racked up 23 whiffs, earning his first win in four starts with the Dodgers.
"He adjusted, and we did not do a good job of adjusting back," Kelly said.
On the flip side, Jones didn’t allow a hit until the fourth, which was around the time the Dodgers forced him to come into the zone more. They got Jones for two runs and tacked on two more against Yohan Ramírez in the fifth before keeping the Pirates at bay the rest of the way.
Pittsburgh’s only other chance to score came in the eighth, when Esmerlyn Valdez cracked a double to left. Billy Cook pinch ran and advanced to third on a passed ball. However, Reynolds struck out swinging and Oneil Cruz was called out on strikes to end the threat.
Valdez, who had been off the previous two games, was the only Pirate with multiple hits. The team dropped to 63-68, seven games back of the final National League Wild Card spot as of this writing.
"I think I beat myself," said Jones, who walked five. "I felt like when I was in the zone, I had full control of the game. Had a lot of free passes and really just beat myself.”
As dominant as Skubal was following Jared Triolo’s second-inning single, the Pirates actually had a solid approach when facing Skubal early on, content to think up the middle and use the opposite field.
It led to a three-run first, as Cruz delivered another big hit since his return. Valdez and Reynolds singled, and Cruz belted a first-pitch sinker into the right-field corner for a two-run triple.
The ball left Cruz’s bat at 114 mph, and it gave him seven RBIs in his first four games back, with three extra-base hits.
Cruz scored when the next batter, Rafael Flores Jr., hit a ground ball to second base.
"We started off well," Reynolds said. "If we could have pushed a couple more across, it would've been great. But we didn't."
After the Pirates jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first, the Dodgers made it a one-run game with a pair of runs in the fourth, as left fielder Teoscar Hernández and center fielder Alek Thomas delivered RBI singles through the left side.
Hernández, a right-handed hitter, connected on a fastball a little down in the zone, shooting it through at 105.1 mph. Thomas, who bats lefty, went the opposite way with a slider located middle-away.
Jones faced little resistance the first time through the Dodgers' lineup, striking out five and allowing just one walk. The second time through, different story. Jones said he developed a blister on his thumb in the second inning, though he didn't want to use that as an excuse.
"You have to get over that stuff and get the ball in the zone," Jones said.
Jones lasted four innings and gave up two runs on three hits with five walks and five strikeouts. He amassed 12 whiffs, though none with his slider, which he threw just 21% of the time, a 14% drop over normal.
Kelly stuck with Jones during a busy fourth, trusting him to get Freddie Freeman with bases loaded. Jones rewarded the faith by getting Freeman to fly out to left.
It wasn't a bad start for Jones, but it was another short one for the Pirates. To buoy their season, they need those guys to lead the charge. It'll be Lake Bachar Sunday, with Carmen Mlodzinski available in bulk. Paul Skenes will go during the Padres series.
Along with failing to convert situationally in the second and eighth, it's a pretty standard recipe for how the Pirates reverse this trend and get on some kind of run.
"It’s the little details we see that are mattering a lot," Kelly said. "They add up to big things. When we have the opportunity to score, we have to push runs across. Did we play perfect today? No, we didn’t. I think we played pretty good baseball. We need to throw more strikes and find a way to score runs. When we get those opportunities, especially against a team like the Dodgers, we have to capitalize on them."
Jason Mackey: Jason.Mackey@pirates.com and @JMackey_PGH on X.