The long wait is finally over for Pittsburgh. The Pirates earned a win in a Paul Skenes start for the first time in nearly two months, routing the Braves 12-4 on Tuesday night as Skenes picked up the victory. The result snapped a nine-game skid by Pittsburgh in games started by Skenes, a stretch that began after a May 12 win over the Rockies and carried into July.
But as important as Skenes’ outing was, he was not the headline of the night.
That belonged to Ryan O’Hearn, who powered one of the most remarkable offensive performances in franchise history. O’Hearn drove in 10 of Pittsburgh’s 12 runs with a first-inning grand slam, a three-run homer in the third and another three-run shot in the sixth. Through six innings, the Pirates had scored 10 runs — and every one of them came off O’Hearn’s bat.
His 10 RBIs set a new Pirates single-game record, an extraordinary mark for a franchise that dates back to 1882 and has featured legendary run producers such as Honus Wagner, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Ralph Kiner and Barry Bonds. On Tuesday, O’Hearn moved past them all in the club record book.
Here is the grand slam:
And here is the third home run, the swing that made history:
O’Hearn even had a chance to join the rare four-homer club when he came to the plate in the eighth inning against a position player, but he settled for a single. Even so, his 4-for-5 night with three home runs and 10 RBIs stands as one of the greatest individual offensive performances Major League Baseball has seen.
The MLB record for RBIs in a single game is 12, first set by Jim Bottomley in 1924 and later matched by Mark Whiten during his four-homer game in 1993. Tony Lazzeri drove in 11 runs in 1936, and Phil Weintraub did the same in 1944. Those are the only performances in major-league history with more RBIs than O’Hearn produced Tuesday. He is now one of just 17 players ever to reach 10 RBIs in a game, joining a list that most recently added Shohei Ohtani in 2024.
This was the 10th time in MLB history a player hit three homers and had 10 RBI in the same game. The most recent was Ohtani in that same game.
This was also just the 25th time in Pirates history a player hit three homers in a game. It last happened Aug. 2 of last season when Liover Peguero shockingly did so. The list includes four Kiners, four Stargells, three Andrew McCutchens and two Clementes, among others.
O’Hearn has been a huge pickup for the Pirates this season. They had the worst offense in baseball last year and desperately needed a few upgrades. He’s provided one. He’s hitting .293/.351/.500 now with 16 homers and 61 RBI. Along with fellow newcomer Brandon Lowe and a resurgent Bryan Reynolds, the middle of the order has been solidified.
Skenes has strong outing after rough stretch
Now let’s get back to Skenes. He wasn’t dominant in this one, but he was good enough and his teammates provided him with run support, something that had been missing in several of those nine losses.
The final line for Skenes: 6 IP, 8 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K.
As I said, he wasn’t dominant. He allowed a high number of hits and didn’t strike out many Atlanta hitters. He allowed hard contact eight times. Of the 31 swings on his fastball, only eight missed and six balls were hit hard. When he’s going well, we’d see a lot more whiffs and fewer hard-hit balls. It should be noted that there have been concerns about a drop in spin rate and, sure enough, Skenes’ spin rates on all but one of his pitches were significantly lower than season-long averages. His splitter spin rate, however, was 1,716 rpm compared to an average of 1,630. Overall, though, this concern hasn’t gone away.
MLB trends: What’s behind Paul Skenes’ slump (for him), the Guardians’ bullpen problems, the league’s offense
Mike Axisa
Still, great pitchers battle even without their best stuff and that’s what he did here. He gutted through six innings and only allowed two runs. That’s a 3.00 ERA, which illustrates it was a relatively successful outing.
During the nine-game drought in his starts, Skenes had a 5.36 ERA, so he was certainly at fault in a few of the outings. He had one of the worst starts of his career last time out. There was also a five-game stretch in there where he had a 2.57 ERA, and the problem was either run support (three games with two runs scored, one with one) or the bullpen (eight runs allowed on June 3). Sometimes it was a combination, such as on May 17, when he gave up five runs in five innings and got no runs of support.
Things clicked back into place Tuesday night in PNC Park. O’Hearn was the star, and one of the big takeaways was that the team finally won another game with their ace on the hill.
