Luis Ortiz, Paul Skenes sizzle as Pirates hit 3 homers to beat Rays
Luis Ortiz continued to make a case for a spot in the starting rotation, and Paul Skenes continued to showed off his triple-digit heater, but his first hit allowed in spring training was a home run off a 100 mph fastball.
The Pittsburgh Pirates padded a lead for their pitchers with a solo home run from Jack Suwinski and two-run shots by Canaan Smith-Njigba and Henry Davis in a 7-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday in a Grapefruit League game at Charlotte Sports Park in Port Charlotte, Fla.
Making his first start of spring training, Ortiz struck out the side in the first inning and allowed one unearned run over three innings. Through his first two appearances, Ortiz has five strikeouts against two walks and hasn’t allowed an earned run in five innings.
The Pirates took a 1-0 lead when Suwinski hit Aaron Civale’s full-count pitch for a homer to right in the first inning. Smith-Njigba’s homer to right made it 3-0 in the second, and Davis hit a liner to left for a 5-0 lead in the third and his third consecutive game with a home run.
The Rays cut it to 5-1 when Jake Magnum singled to center to start the bottom of the third, stole second base, reached third on Ortiz’s throwing error on a pickoff attempt and scored on a Yandy Diaz grounder to short.
Skenes gave up his first hit of the spring against the first batter he faced in the fourth as Amed Rosario sent a fastball over the left-center fence for a homer that cut it to 5-2.
Skenes, the 2023 No. 1 overall pick, allowed one run on three hits with three strikeouts while facing nine batters over two innings, throwing 14 of his 17 pitches for strikes and topping triple digits four times.
The Pirates increased their lead to 6-2 on Jared Triolo’s RBI single in the sixth. Francisco Mejia answered with an RBI single off Kyle Nicolas in the bottom of the sixth to cut it to 6-3. The Pirates added another run in the ninth, when Grant Koch hit a two-out double and scored on Ji Hwan Bae’s single to right.
Kevin Gorman is a TribLive reporter covering the Pirates. A Baldwin native and Penn State graduate, he joined the Trib in 1999 and has covered high school sports, Pitt football and basketball and was a sports columnist for 10 years. He can be reached at kgorman@triblive.com.
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