Pirates Paul Skenes Surrenders Five Runs During Opening Day Matchup Against Mets

It just wasn’t his day. Paul has been UNBELIEVABLE since his first start in the league. Therefore, you just expected that eventually one day he would finally come back down to earth. Some day proved to be the first game of the season for Pittsburgh. Thursday afternoon, the Pirates Paul Skenes surrenders five runs during an opening day matchup against the New York Mets. Resulting in Skenes being pulled in the first.

Just looking at him perform from the mound it was easy to see that Paul was just not himself. Usually he’s hurling heat right past guys. As the entire world got a chance to witness during the recent World Baseball Classic. However, during his first outing of the 2026 season, New York was able to get hits off him left and right.

In the first inning, the Pirates do provide Skenes with some run support (scored twice). But unfortunately, their normally killer ace ran into some early trouble. He walks Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto singles off him, Bo Bichette hits a sac fly; Jorge Polanco singles and Skene promptly walks Luis Roberts. Then, when you thought it couldn’t get worse, Brett Baty triples, Marcus Semien doubles and then Francisco Lindor (yes, made it all the way back to Lindor); is hit with a pitch. All of this action results in a 5-2 lead for the Mets.

While Pittsburgh did put up a valiant effort and fight against New York. They would still ultimately fall short in their opener. The Mets would take the victory in this high scoring game, winning 7-11.

Pirates Paul Skenes Surrenders Five Runs During Opening Day Matchup Against Mets

Now, in Skenes defense it was not all on him. His teammate, Oneil Cruz made a couple of bad reads in centerfield during the first inning as well. However, bad defense aside, Paul just didn’t have the best day at work. After giving up five runs and throwing only 37 pitches, Skenes fails to make it out of the opening inning in the first start of his season.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan summed up the Skenes uncharacteristic inning this way, “Paul Skenes is done. He recorded two outs. You have to think this was as much about not taking an extremely stressful inning and adding to it as anything. Skenes threw 37 pitches, and Pirates manager Don Kelly didn’t want to tax him more. A stunning first for the Mets.” Stunning and unexpected indeed. Mets looked good kicking off the season and Skenes will just need to shake this one off.

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