Saturday began off as an excellent day of pleasure and optimism for the Pittsburgh Pirates as Paul Skenes, among the finest pitching prospects of the previous 15 years, was set to make his main league debut.
Whereas he shortly demonstrated why he was the No. 1 total choose and one in every of baseball’s high prospects, the Pirates shortly confirmed him why the franchise has achieved simply seven successful seasons prior to now 35 years and has largely been a league-wide laughing inventory.
The incompetence confirmed itself shortly.
All of it started within the high of the fifth inning with the Pirates main 6-1. After permitting the primary two batters of the inning to achieve base, Pirates supervisor Derek Shelton determined to take away Skenes for reliever Kyle Nicolas as his pitch depend began to climb and his management began to slide away.
After hanging out the primary two batters he confronted, Nicolas proceeded to have the kind of meltdown that might solely be rivaled by Ricky “Wild Factor” Vaughn within the “Main League” film.
After hitting Ian Happ to load the bases, Nicolas proceeded to throw 12 consecutive balls to stroll in three runs to chop the Pirates’ lead right down to 6-4.
Mercifully, Nicolas was eliminated for Josh Fleming.
Fleming then walked the primary batter he confronted on solely 5 pitches to chop the result in 6-5 after which allowed an infield single to tie the sport. At that time, the sky opened up with a thunderstorm sending the sport right into a rain delay. The Pirates had been one out away from making it an official sport with a 6-1 lead. They may not even accomplish that.
Here’s a take a look at the fifth-inning meltdown.
