It was an Opening Day to forget for Paul Skenes.
The Pittsburgh Pirates removed Skenes in the first inning after the reigning NL Cy Young winner allowed five runs and recorded just two outs during Thursday’s 11-7 loss to the New York Mets.
“You’ve gotta look at it for what it is, there wasn’t a ton of hard contact,” Skenes told reporters postgame. “The batting average on balls in play thing was super high today. That’ll go down as the season goes on.”
The five runs allowed by Skenes tied his previous career high.
“I’m not as upset about this for me, personally, as people would probably think,” Skenes said, according to the Associated Press. “Because they did a really good job. It was an abnormal outing.”
Skenes walked two and gave up a bases-clearing triple to Brett Baty, whose fly ball was misjudged by Oneil Cruz in center field.
Cruz then lost a Marcus Semien fly ball in the sun during the next at-bat, leading to an RBI double for the Mets second baseman.
“That ball straight at him, he came in, got a bad read,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said. “He’s been working hard out there. He just needs to continue to get better. Then the one in the sun. He just lost it in the sun.”
The Pirates center fielder recorded minus-14 defensive runs saved at the position last season. His defensive miscues were immediately criticized by Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid.
“It got in the sun a little bit at the end, but those are the ones that I will get better at, for sure,” Cruz said.
Skenes threw 37 pitches before getting replaced by right-hander Yohan Ramírez.
“I felt good, but (we were) being precautionary,” Skenes said. “The pitch count wasn’t going to be super, super high today anyway.”
He added: “Obviously not ideal to have a bullpen game on Opening Day.”
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