Dodger Stadium was in the spotlight on Friday as Paul Skenes and Yoshinobu Yamamoto took the mound in the series opener between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Los Angeles Dodgers.
For Yamamoto, it was his second consecutive start against a Cy Young-caliber pitcher, as he outdueled Jacob deGrom last week in the Dodgers’ road win against the Texas Rangers. That prompted manager Dave Roberts to declare Yamamoto the best pitcher in the National League, while also recognizing the talent that Skenes is.
Both pitchers have certainly been impressive, but it was Skenes who stole the show in a homecoming of sorts. The Orange County native finished with a season-high nine strikeouts over 6.1 scoreless innings.
“Executed better,” Skenes said of the start compared to his two prior instances of facing the Dodgers last season.
“You saw it today with a lot of the hits that they got, even when you execute your pitches, they’re still going to find ways to get on. I definitely executed better today than I did the other two times that I faced them, but that’s just kind of the nature of it. They’re really good hitters.”
Last season, the Dodgers scored a combined seven runs against Skenes in just 11 innings pitched over his two starts against them. That included Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández hitting home runs, and Gavin Lux producing a three-RBI night.
On Friday, Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages combined for three doubles off Skenes. He allowed only two other hits — singles by Freeman and Hernández. Ohtani went 0-for-4 with one strikeout and reached base only via a fielder’s choice.
“This is where baseball gets really fun, I think, to find different ways to get them out,” Skenes said of repeated matchups against the Dodgers.
“Ohtani saw all my pitches today. Freddie, I think, saw all my pitches today. Aside from today, they’ve all seen all my pitches. I’m not hiding anything from them, and they’re not hiding anything from me. I’ve seen how they attack me and they’ve seen how I attack them. That’s what makes baseball really fun.”
Skenes had a group of 35 family members in a Dodger Stadium suite to watch his start, and others he has relationships with scattered throughout the ballpark.
Dave Roberts praises Paul Skenes
Although Roberts threw his support behind Yamamoto, that was in no slight to Skenes, who has thoroughly impressed the skipper.
“I think what stands out most is one summer, he is in the College World Series and then the next year he was pitching in the big leagues,” Roberts said.
“To be able to make that jump that quickly, to handle the workload, to handle expectations, that’s hard to do. I can’t recall a pitcher that’s done it like that recently and had this type of success early. He’s physical, it seems like he’s pretty grounded, really good competitor.”
Have you subscribed to the Dodger Blue YouTube channel? Be sure to ring the notification bell to watch player interviews, participate in shows and giveaways, and stay up to date on all Dodgers news and rumors!
