Today: Pirates vs. Nationals, 6:40 p.m.

• Who: Pirates (5-11) vs. Nationals (6-9)
• What: MLB regular season, Game 17
• When: 6:40 p.m.
• Where: PNC Park
• Weather: 68°, cloudy, 46% chance of rain
• Pitchers: RHP Paul Skenes (1-1, 3.44 ERA) vs. RHP Brad Lord (0-0, 1.80 ERA)
• TV: SportsNet Pittsburgh
• Radio: Pirates Radio Network
• Streaming: SNP360, MLB.TV
• Satellite: SiriusXM 869/861
• Boxscore: MLB.com
• Media notes: Pirates | Nationals

• Crews grounds out to third and that’s the game. Final: Pirates 10, Nationals 3

• DeJong singles to left center.

• 4-3, Garcia.

• Bell flies out to right field.

• Dennis Santana gets the ninth and Jack Suwinski comes in to play left field with Pham moving to right.

• End of eighth inning: Cruz strikes out and Reynolds grounds out to second. 

• RUN: IKF singles into center field, Pham scores from second. Pirates, 10-3

• Frazier goes the opposite way and singles into left field. He went with a sinker on the outer edge of the plate.

• Save some for the rest of the week boys.

• RUN: Pham does the opposite way and singles into right field to score Hayes from second. Pirates, 9-3

• Hayes swipes second.

• Davis strikes out for the second time tonight.

• This is the first game all season where the Pirates have had two or more hits in four innings. Shows precisely how much they haven’t been able to string hits together.

• RUNS: Hayes with a two-RBI single into left center. Made contact with a sinker at the top of the zone. Pirates, 8-3

• RUN: Valdez doubles down the first-base line to score Reynolds from second. McCutchen smartly holds at third. Pirates, 6-3

• Eduardo Salazar has now entered the game for Washington.

• I love a good bat flip from McCutchen when he walks.

• Reynolds advances to second on a wild pitch.

• Reynolds singles to right field on the first pitch he sees. It was a slider on the inner half. He’s 2-for-3 tonight with two RBIs.

• Lowe flies out to the warning track in right field.

• RUN: Ruiz drives in Nuñez with a soft single to center field. He caught a cutter down in the zone and just made contact, 92.7 mph exit velocity. Pirates, 5-3

• Wood grounds out to second after an 11-pitch battle, Nuñez advances to third. 

• Frazier ranges from his spot near the second base bag to get Call at first base. Nuñez advacnes to second.

• Nuñez pops one over Valdez’s head and into right field. 

• Caleb Ferguson has entered the game.

• End of seventh inning: Cruz strikes out swinging on a splitter on the outside corner.

• IKF flies out to left center.

• Frazier grounds out to shortstop.

• A: 10,402

• Lawrence gets Crews with his patented sweeper that breaks way out of the zone. Nice work by Lawrence, needed just 12 pitches as he set the Nationals down in order.

• Pham stutter steps a little bit on a fly ball to left field. Two away.

• Garcia grounds out to Valdez as Lawrence makes quick work of the first hitter he faces.

• Justin Lawrence enters the game. Skenes’ final line: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K.

• End of sixth inning: Pham puts together an ugly swing at a 1-2 slider. Took Rutledge just 13 pitches to set the Pirates down in order.

• Davis is caught looking at a slider in the middle of the strike zone.

• Hayes flies out to center field to start the bottom half.

• A lot of bad ugly baseball in that half inning that allowed the Nationals to score two runs.

• Jackson Rutledge has entered the game for Washington.

• Bell grounds out to Frazier to end the top of the sixth. Skenes is at 99 pitches.

• Chris: Three errors have allowed the Nationals to take an extra four bases thus far.

• RUN: Lowe drives in Wood on a single to left center. Lowe advanced to second on a Cruz error. He bobbled it as he went to field it. Pirates, 5-2

• Wood advances all the way to third on another errant pickoff attempt.

• McCutchen then makes a diving play in right field to rob Ruiz of a hit.

• RUN: Nuñez scores on a fielder’s choice groundout by Wood. Call is out at second. Pirates, 5-1

• The call stands and Nuñez is safe at third.

• Hayes makes an error at third and Nunez advances on the play. Hayes tried to pitch the ball to Skenes as he came over to cover the base and Skenes took a tumble. The play is under review.

• Chris: The expected batting average on Cruz’s pop-up single was .030, per Baseball Savant.

• Nuñez doubles to left field. 

• RUNS: Valdez singles into right field and scores both Cruz and Reynolds. However, Valdez is thrown out trying to advance to second. He didn’t slide into second and ran right by the base. That ends the fifth. Pirates, 5-0

• Cutch walks on five pitches.

• RUN: Sac fly for Reynolds, Pham scores. Frazier holds at second. Pirates, 3-0

• Cruz singles on a high fly ball to shallow right field (not sure it should’ve been ruled a hit). Pham holds at third and the bases are loaded. It wasn’t necessarily deep enough for him to score, he was about a third of the way down the third-base line.

• Colin Poche has entered the game. He’ll face Cruz.

• IKF puts down a sac bunt. Pham and Frazier move into scoring position. Lord’s day is now done. His final line: 4 1/3, 6 H, 3 BB, 1 K

• Frazier singles through the left side. 

• Pham walks.

• Rodriguez was removed due to a right index finger laceration, the team just announced.

• Hayes still one of the best third baseman in Major League Baseball. He just barehanded a soft grounder from Crews and threw him out at first.

• Skenes just fooled DeJong so bad that DeJong’s bat ended up in shallow left field. It flew right past Hayes at third. It was a slider that finished way out of the zone.

• Garcia flies out to Cruz in center. There were four players going for that one until Cruz took command.

• End of fourth inning: Davis lines out to short.

• 1-4-3, Hayes. Another base runner erased by a double play. That’s two tonight.

• Valdez walks for the second time tonight.

• Also, Skenes and Davis are the first battery of players taken 1-1 in Major League Baseball history. 

• Bell grounds out to Valdez.

• Is Bob Nutting in the house? Just heard a bunch of random booing from fans in attendance.

• Skenes records his fifth strikeout by locating a sweeper at the bottom of the zone to get Lowe.

• Cruz corrals a fly ball of Ruiz’s bat.

• End of third inning: McCutchen strikes out and Reynolds is thrown out trying to steal second.

• RUN: Reynolds drives in Cruz with a single into left field. Pirates, 2-0

• Cruz doubles into the left field corner.

• From looking at the broadcast, Endy has a splint on his right index finger.

• IKF pushes Crews back to the warning track but it’s hauled in.

• There’s No. 4. Skenes pumps a high fastball past Wood at 98.7 mph. Skenes is up to 52 pitches.

• Call grounds out to Hayes at third, two away.

• Skenes’ patented “splinker” low and out of the zone gets Nuñez swinging for a strikeout, Skenes’ third of the night.

• Chris: Pham already drawing heavy boos this season. Should we just call this the Austin Hedges treatment? Or keep making it personalized for each player?

• End of second inning: Frazier lines out to left field.

• Pham immediately erases him with a 5-4-3 double play ball and that brings out the boo-birds.

• Davis records his first hit of the year on a shallow fly ball to right.

• Crews sends a soft ground ball back to Skenes on the mound for the third out. Skenes up to 37 pitches after throwing 16 that inning.

• Here comes Crews. It’s the first matchup against his former LSU teammate.

• Cruz breaks late on a fly ball to shallow center field and DeJong reaches on a single.

• Garcia grounds out to IKF. Two away.

• Skenes gets Bell on an outside fastball. 98.2 mph.

• Just can’t get out of their own way.

• RUN: Hayes singles into right field to score McCutchen and is then thrown out at first after taking to big of a turn toward second. That ends the first. Pirates, 1-0

• Valdez watches ball four on the outside edge. 

• McCutchen gets fastball that he loves down in the zone and sends it to center field for the first hit of the night.

• Reynolds lines out to short as well. Sounded dead off the bat, almost like it cracked at the handle.

• Cruz lines out to short. That had a lot behind it (115.3 exit velocity), Nuñez was just positioned perfectly.

• It’s a 6-3 groundout for Lowe and Skenes gets out of the first.

• Wood advances to second on a errant pickoff attempt by Skenes. Pirates lucky he moved up just 90 feet. Skenes was charged with a throwing error, but that’s all on Valdez.

• Ruiz whiffs at a changeup out of the zone for Skenes’ first strikeout of the night.

• Skenes keeping Wood close to the bag at first.

• Endy exits the game after that. The pitch hit his hand after the bounce Henry Davis is taking over behind the plate. Side note: It looked like that pitch barely hit Wood.

• Looks like Rodriguez took a pitch off the hand there as Skenes hit Wood with a curveball.

• Skenes throws six pitches to Call and gets him to roll into a 5-3 groundout.

• First pitch: Pirates vs. Nationals, Paul Skenes to Alex Call, PNC Park, 6:41 p.m., 75 degrees, cloudy

• Interesting to see Cruz in the leadoff spot. Maybe even more intriguing, or puzzling, to see Valdez in the clean-up spot.

• For Derek Shelton’s Pirates: 
1. Oneil Cruz, CF
2. Bryan Reynolds, DH
3. Andrew McCutchen, RF
4. Enmanuel Valdez, 1B
5. Ke’Bryan Hayes, 3B
6. Endy Rodriguez, C
7. Tommy Pham, LF
8. Adam Frazier, 2B
9. Isiah Kiner-Falefa, SS

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