Skenes struggles again, O'Hearn injured in 8-7 loss

PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) - When it rains, it pours. The Pirates lost their 7th game in their last 9 and Ryan O'Hearn left the game with a quad injury.

With a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the 8th inning, the Pirates bullpen once again couldn't get the final 6 outs. The Reds tied the game at 7-7 on a two run single from Sal Stewart. He drove in four in the game. With runners on the corners and two outs, Nick Gonzales got a routine ground ball, looked at second base, double clutched and then threw it away off Brandon Lowe's glove and the go-ahead run came into score for the Reds.

"It just looked like Brandon was getting to the bag and I don't know if the ball cut on him a little bit. I'm not sure exactly what happened. Obviously he didn't make the catch," said Don Kelly.

In the top of the ninth, O'Hearn pulled up lame running to first base and had to be helped off the field.

"It was a quad injury, it didn't look good," said Kelly.

Paul Skenes struggled again in another start. He piched just 4 innings and allowed 5 earned runs on 7 hits. He threw 100 pitches and struck out 7 batters.

"It just looked like the pitch count got elevated in the first inning, had two innings that were in the 30's. Command maybe? There were foul balls too. It just didn't look like he was able to finish them like he typically does," said Don Kelly after the game.

"Today was straight up the sloppiest outting of the year for me. Haven't been able to get ahead in counts," said Skenes.

The Bucs got a run back on a sac fly from Esmerlyn Valdez in the top of the 5th. After Skenes departed the game, Antwone Kelly came in relief and pitched three scoreless innings allowing just two hits.

"I thought Antwone gave us more than maybe what we've expected to keep the game right there," said Kelly.

With the loss, the Pirates are now under .500 with the trade deadline looming on Monday. They currently sit 2.5 games out of the final Wild Card spot. Game 3 of the series against the Reds is Saturday at 6:40. Braxton Ashcraft faces off against Andrew Abbott.

"From start to finish and then what happened with Ryan at the end. It's extremely tough. We've shown a lot of resiliency and this is going to be something that we gotta dig deep and find a way to overcome. Collectively pull together and find a way to get over this loss and with Ryan and be ready to play tomorrow," said Kelly.