LOS ANGELES -- The Pirates came out swinging Saturday and had Tarik Skubal on the ropes in the first inning. By the end of the night, though, the Dodgers lefty had settled in, Jared Jones had lost the strike zone, and Pittsburgh was walking out of Dodger Stadium with a 4-3 loss that sent the series to the home team.
Pittsburgh’s opening burst looked like a game plan that might keep Skubal under pressure all night. The Pirates scored three times in the first, with Oneil Cruz delivering the loudest swing of the inning.
After Esmerlyn Valdez and Bryan Reynolds singled, Cruz jumped on a first-pitch sinker and ripped it into the right-field corner for a two-run triple. The ball came off his bat at 114 mph and gave him seven RBIs in his first four games back, along with three extra-base hits.
Rafael Flores Jr. followed with a ground ball to second that brought Cruz home.
For a while, the Pirates were doing exactly what worked against Skubal early: thinking up the middle and using the opposite field. Jared Triolo’s second-inning single fit that approach, and Pittsburgh had the look of a club ready to keep poking holes in the Dodgers ace.
Instead, Skubal slammed the door. After that second-inning single, he retired 18 of the final 19 Pirates he faced and struck out 11.
Only one ball the Pirates put in play the rest of the way reached the outfield. Skubal worked seven innings, allowed three runs, walked one, threw 106 pitches with 74 strikes, and piled up 23 whiffs.
It was his first win in four starts with the Dodgers.
The Dodgers chipped away at Jones once they saw him a second time. Jones didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning, but that’s when Los Angeles adjusted. Teoscar Hernández and Alek Thomas each drove in a run with RBI singles through the left side to cut the lead to one.
Jones was sharp early, striking out five and walking one through his first trip around the lineup. After that, the control started to slip.
He ended up lasting four innings, giving up two runs on three hits with five walks and five strikeouts. He generated 12 whiffs, but none came on his slider, which he used just 21% of the time, a 14% drop over normal.
Pirates manager Don Kelly kept Jones in during a busy fourth and trusted him to handle Freddie Freeman with the bases loaded. Jones answered by getting Freeman to fly out to left.
The Dodgers added two more runs against Yohan Ramírez in the fifth, and from there Pittsburgh never found much else. The Pirates’ only real threat after the first came in the eighth, when Valdez doubled to left. Billy Cook pinch ran, moved to third on a passed ball, and then the inning fizzled when Bryan Reynolds struck out swinging and Cruz was called out on strikes.
Valdez, who had sat out the previous two games, was the only Pirate with multiple hits. The loss dropped Pittsburgh to 63-68, seven games back of the final National League Wild Card spot as of this writing.
Saturday’s game ended up looking more like Jones’ last outing than his rough start before that. He allowed one earned run over five innings last weekend, a clear step forward from the outing on Aug. 9, when he gave up eight earned in three innings. But five walks is still five walks, and that was too much to survive against a lineup like this one.
The Pirates had a chance to make Skubal’s night ugly when Henry Davis bunted to move a pair of runners in the second. Instead, the left-hander found something - his delivery, his velocity, or both - and took control. He struck out seven of the next nine, all on swings, as Pittsburgh lost the early approach that had worked so well.
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