The Pirates should have called up Paul Skenes tonight, but as well as Brayan Bello pitched, it probably didn’t matter.
When Marco Gonzales went on the IL with a forearm strain following his last start for the Pirates on Saturday, tonight’s game should have turned into one of the most electrifying on the entire baseball calendar! While Pittsburgh was left scrabbling to fill that rotation spot, they had a very obvious solution sitting right in front of them in perhaps the most exciting young pitching prospect in the entire sport.
But instead of calling Paul Skenes up to make his big league debut tonight, they let him play with his food for another outing in Indianapolis last night. Here’s a sample of what he did down there:
Final look at the fancy numbers for Paul Skenes. pic.twitter.com/2lHMe2farM
— Noah Hiles (@_NoahHiles) April 18, 2024
Can you imagine the atmosphere in PNC Park tonight if they had made a different decision? You would have had a monstrous pitching prospect making his debut, at home, shoving 102 mph heat down a lousy lineup’s throat on a beautiful Friday night at a point in the season where the Pirates are playing meaningful games. And then, on top of all that, it would have just happened to also match up with a night where another exciting young pitcher, Brayan Bello, turned in one of the best outings of his career.
Instead, the Pirates decided to call Quinn Priester back up. This is a guy who appeared in ten games for the Pirates last year and gave up twelve home runs. So tonight, going against a lineup that does just about everything wrong except hit home runs, you’ll never guess what happened.
Three jacks in 4.1 innings of work! A pair in the first off the bats of Wilyer Abreu and Triston Casas, and another in the fourth by Rob Refsynder, who is fresh off the IL making his season debut tonight.
All that was more than enough run support for Brayan Bello. He not only threw six shutout innings with seven strike outs, but also seemed to get stronger as the game rolled on, something he’s struggled with in his young career. Dave Bush looks like a bigger and bigger fraud every single day!
Just another note on Skenes and the Pirates because I really can’t get over it.
Right now, Fangraphs is projecting that it’s going to take just 84 wins to capture the NL Central. Pittsburgh is only a few games off that pace, and they have a guy that can consistently pound the zone in excess of 100mph. What are they waiting for!?!? Nowadays, it seems like all pitches (but especially guys who throw as hard as Skenes) only have a certain amount of bullets in the gun before they break. Or to put it in pirate terms, only a certain number of cannon balls to fire off the deck.
This may be the best chance they have to make some serious noise, and instead they’re letting games like tonight happen when a mediocre Red Sox team walked all over them.
But hey, if they want to hand the Red Sox an easy win, I’ll certainly take it. We need all the help we can get!
Three Studs
Brayan Bello
Awesome outing! Only thing that could have been better is if he did it in pitcher’s duel in a rowdy atmosphere, which this game could have had, but nothing he can do about that until he gets an opportunity.
Wilyer Abreu
Got the scoring started with an enormous home run in the first inning that cleared the right field seats, and then tacked on a couple more knocks.
Cam Boozer
Made his major league debut tonight in the ninth inning as the capper to one of the wildest paths to the major leagues you will ever see. You gotta read more about it here!
Here’s his emotional moment in the dugout after soaking in that he made it to a big league mound after all these years.
What an awesome job by @NESN showing the emotion of 31-year-old Cam Booser crying in the dugout after finally getting to make his #MLB debut at the age of 31
Perseverance, hard work and heart shining through! Love it!
Congrats to him! ⚾️
(Video via @nesn) pic.twitter.com/vo612W1LWB— Dan Roche (@RochieWBZ) April 20, 2024
Man, baseball continues to be the greatest game in the world!
Three Duds
Jarren Duran
Rare hitless night for Duran going 0-5 at the top of the lineup. Fortunately, the Red Sox didn’t need him as every other starter had at least one hit.
Bad Baserunning
It wouldn’t be a Red Sox game without this team making at least one dumb mistake. Tonight, it was Masataka Yoshi getting thrown out at home with nobody out in the second inning.
BOBBY DALBEC DID A THING!!! And Yoshida gets thrown out at home 🙁 pic.twitter.com/faT4wjR8HB
— Mr Matthew CFB (@MrMatthew_CFB) April 19, 2024
Joe Jacques
He was Designated For Assignment today to make room on the roster for Cam Boozer.