Rockies deck Pirates ace Paul Skenes, clinch series victory with 8-5 win

Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post on Aug 2, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DENVER — Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes, making his first start at Coors Field, was nearly untouchable for five innings on a stormy Saturday afternoon. Then the Colorado Rockies jabbed him, and Jordan Beck threw a haymaker en route to an 8-5 win.

Colorado, owners of an 8-6 record since the All-Star break, clinched the three-game series. It was Colorado’s fifth series win of the season. A cloudburst arrived just before the eighth inning, delaying the game for 1 hour, 4 minutes.

There was, possibly, some bad news for Colorado when closer Seth Halvorsen departed the game in the ninth with an apparent injury.

The Rockies had just two hits and struck out eight times vs. Skenes in their first five at-bats. They looked like the same old swing-and-miss Rockies, overmatched by a pitcher with a 1.83 ERA who had allowed just two earned runs over five starts in July.

But maybe, just maybe, the Rockies (30-80) are beginning to figure things out.

Mickey Moniak led off the sixth with a single, and Ezequiel Tovar drew a walk off of Skenes. Up stepped Beck, who hit a three-run homer that skipped off the top of the fence in right field. Beck’s homer, his 13th, marked the first time in Skene’s 46 big-league starts that he’s given up a three-run homer. Skenes has never been slammed.

Skene’s 4-0 lead was down to 4-3, and the Rockies weren’t finished.

Impossibly hot first baseman Warming Bernabel lashed a double to left, ending Skene’s day, but not his line in the box score. Thairo Estrada singled off reliever Braxton Ashcraft, and Brenton Doyle lashed an RBI single to left, tying the game 4-4. An RBI double by catcher Austin Nola and an RBI groundout completed Colorado’s six-run sixth.

Skenes departed with a 2.02 ERA after being charged with four runs on five hits.

Bernabel’s been in the majors for one week, but he’s quickly become the Rockies’ rookie wrecking ball. He was 3 for 4 with two doubles and delivered an RBI single in the seventh. In his first seven games, Bernabel is hitting .500 with a 1.553 OPS, 29 total bases and eight RBIs. His 14 hits are the most in Rockies history through a player’s first seven games.

Orlando Arcia, playing third base after Ryan McMahon was traded to the Yankees, added a bonus run with a solo homer off Genesis Cabrera in the eighth.

Rockies starter Austin Gomber pitched well for five innings — if you toss out two home runs by leadoff hitter Liover Peguero.

The first baseman led off the game with a homer to left. Gomber then shut down the Pirates until the fifth when he issued a leadoff walk to Jared Triolo, Tovar made an error at short on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s infield chopper. That set the table for Peguero’s three-run homer down the left-field line. Peguero also hit a solo homer in the ninth off rookie Dugan Darnell to finish off his three-homer day.

Gomber, carrying a 6.18 ERA, gave up five hits, struck out five and walked one.

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