Its Thursday, August 7 and Paul Skenes is on the mound tonight as the Pirates (49-66) welcome Elly De La Cruz and the Reds (60-55) to the Steel City for the first of a four-game series.

After closing out July with wins in eight of their last nine games, the Bucs have cooled off in August losing for of their first six. Yesterday, they closed out their series with San Francisco with a 4-2 loss. Pittsburgh’s bullpen failed them once again as the Giants rallied for one in the eighth and two in the ninth.

The Reds come to town fresh off a series win at Wrigley Field against the Cubs. They did, however, lose the finale yesterday, 6-1. TJ Friedl collected two of the Reds’ four hits in the game. Cincinnati as a team struck out 12 times in 32 trips to the plate in the game.

Lets dive into

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