Paul Skenes has rare rough, abbreviated outing as Pirates fall to Brewers, dropping series

Wednesday’s series finale in Milwaukee between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Brewers featured an anticipated pitching matchup as Paul Skenes faced fellow 23-year-old flamethrower Jacob Misiorowski, a rookie who had impressed over his first two big-league starts.

Milwaukee came away with a 4-2 victory at American Family Field to take the three-game series, with Misiorowski outdueling Skenes (4-7, 2.12 ERA), who lasted a season-low four innings, allowing four runs.

Following the game, manager Don Kelly revealed on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show that Skenes’ shortened outing was partially because of season-long workload monitoring.

“We’re just trying to monitor Paul,” Kelly said. “He’s our workhorse and has pitched a lot. We had (Mike) Burrows available out of the (bullpen), so just kind of monitoring it and seeing how the game was going to go along.

“We’re always watching, not just Paul, but all the guys. But especially Paul, he’s up over 100 (innings pitched) now. Just really want to be mindful of where he’s at. There’s going to be days where he can run for a long time, and there’s other times that we’ve got to just take care of him, too, as far as him being our workhorse and understanding where he’s at.”

Skenes’ afternoon ended after 78 pitches (50 strikes), having allowed four hits with two walks and four strikeouts.

His outing Wednesday was his shortest of the season, ending a streak of 16 starts of at least five innings pitched.

Regarding his workload to date, Skenes said postgame that his “body’s in a good spot.”

Misiorowski (3-0, 1.13 ERA) delivered five innings in his third MLB start, blanking the Pirates, allowing two hits with a pair of walks and eight strikeouts.

The Pirates (32-50) were held to four hits in total.

“Power arm,” Kelly said of Misiorowski. “It’s impressive. You watch it on video, and when you see it in-person, at least from the (dugout) — I can’t imagine from the (batter’s) box what that looks like — but from the (dugout), you could just see the electricity. Paul is very similar, very tough stuff to hit.”

Skenes walked Isaac Collins to begin the second inning, which began a four-run frame for the Brewers.

Brice Turang and Caleb Durbin followed with singles, loading the bases with no outs, before Joey Ortiz made it 1-0 with an RBI groundout.

The Brewers then went up 2-0, courtesy of a bloop double by Eric Haase that a sliding Oneil Cruz couldn’t come down with in center field.

With runners on second and third and the infield in, Nick Gonzales attempted to erase Durbin, who broke for home on a Sal Frelick grounder.

But Gonzales’ throw home was errant, and Milwaukee went up 3-0 on what was ruled an RBI fielder’s choice.

Christian Yelich added an RBI single to make it 4-0 before Skenes finally escaped the inning, needing 37 pitches to do so.

“I wasn’t unhappy with the execution of all (the pitches),” Skenes said. “There were a couple that could have been a little bit better, maybe there was a different pitch we could have thrown there. … They did a good job.”

In the top of the first, Misiorowski struck out a pair following a leadoff walk of Adam Frazier, who stole second and made it to third.

Skenes also walked a man to begin the game but struck out Yelich and Rhys Hoskins to end the first.

Misiorowski kept the Pirates hitless until the fourth, when Bryan Reynolds led off with a single.

After Skenes’ departure, Burrows pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings for the Pirates.

In the seventh the Pirates got on the board versus Brewers reliever Grant Anderson, with Tommy Pham singling in Cruz from second.

Pham ripped an RBI single past the diving Durbin at third, with Cruz having gotten aboard on an error by Collins.

That made it 4-1 Brewers, and Pham took second base on an unsuccessful throw home to nab Cruz, but the Pirates stranded him and Anderson limited the damage to a run.

In the eighth, the Pirates got within 4-2 when Spencer Horwitz’s two-out RBI double scored Frazier, who walked.

Needing a rally in the ninth, the Pirates went down in order against Trevor Megill.