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TORONTO — For the first time in his career, Paul Skenes has allowed three or more earned runs in consecutive starts.
It took just three pitches for Toronto to put Skenes on his back foot on Friday, as George Springer drove a 97.8 mph fastball above the zone over the left field wall for a leadoff homer and an early lead.
Despite allowing some more traffic in a 21-pitch opening frame, Skenes limited the damage to just Springer’s blast before settling in.
The 23-year-old ace retired 12 of the next 15 batters he faced, using his full array of pitches to work through the middle innings without surrendering another run while stranding runners in scoring position in the second, third and fifth innings.
But the Blue Jays broke through again in the sixth when they strung together four consecutive hits off the reigning NL Cy Young winner, scoring twice to chase him from the game with runners on the corners and no outs as Yohan Ramírez entered in relief.
His last time out, Skenes extended his scoreless-innings streak to 20 before running into trouble. Over his final two innings against the Phillies, he allowed five earned runs — matching the most he has allowed in a single game.
While Toronto only managed runs in two innings, Friday’s start was far from the most dominant version of Skenes we’ve seen. He finished with just two strikeouts and allowed nine hits against Toronto’s contact-heavy lineup.
It’s rare to find a Skenes appearance with as little swing-and-miss as he generated against the Blue Jays. Friday was just the fifth time in his three-year career that he completed five-plus innings with fewer than five strikeouts.
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