Oneil Cruz homered for the second straight day and Paul Skenes bounced back from a rough season opener to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to an 8-3 win over the host Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon.
Cruz crushed an 81-mph curveball from Reds starter Andrew Abbott (0-1) 407 feet over the right field fence to stake the Pirates to an early 3-0 lead.
It was Cruz’s third homer of the season and third in a span of four at-bats, following up on his two-homer effort in Tuesday’s Pirates win.
Skenes (1-1), the reigning National League Cy Young winner, backed it up by tossing five innings and allowing one run on three hits and two walks and striking out five on 77 pitches.
It was a needed rebound for Skenes, who had a nightmarish start to the season last Thursday when he surrendered five runs in only 2/3 of an inning — the worst and shortest start of his career.
Skenes didn’t allow a hit until Elly De La Cruz’s leadoff single in the fourth inning. Nathaniel Lowe’s double plated De La Cruz for the only run Skenes would allow. The run broke a string of 31 consecutive scoreless innings for Skenes against the Reds, and was only the second run allowed in six career starts (34 innings) as he improved to 5-0 all-time against Cincinnati with an 0.53 ERA.
Abbott, an All-Star last season, wasn’t as sharp. He allowed four runs on five hits and three walks, striking out five over 5 2/3 innings.
Eugenio Suarez cut the Reds’ deficit to 4-3 when he blasted a pinch-hit, 410-foot two-run homer to left off Pirates reliever Mason Montgomery in the sixth.
Pittsburgh added some insurance in the top of the ninth on a two-run single by Nick Gonzales and a two-run home run by Bryan Reynolds — his second of the season — off Reds reliever Emilio Pagan. Cruz, Gonzales and Reynolds each had two hits.
