Paul Skenes' bobblehead day turns into another embarrassment for Pirates

The 2025 season is not even a month old, and this has become a common occurrence at games. It happened during a home-opening blowout loss to the New York Yankees, and it is now happening at games that are supposed to be the must-see games on the schedule (Skenes starts). 

There was anger behind those chants on Saturday, which continued as fans exited the stadium.

This is not something that a few extra bobbleheads are going to fix. 

While promotional giveaways might be a nice souvenir or collectible, what fans ultimately want is wins. They want a better team. They want ownership to take advantage of having the best young pitcher to enter the league in decades and build a competitive team around him.

They are not even close to doing that, and even worse, have not even really made an effort. 

The overall inactivity of the Pirates this offseason, combined with their payroll that is again near the bottom of the league, has taken away any positive vibes Skenes' presence has created. With each wasted start, and with each loss, only gets worse.

Skenes was not overly dominant on Saturday, but he still went seven innings and allowed just two earned runs. He pitched well enough to at least get his team a win, even if it did not give him a win on his stats. But the Pirates' lackluster offense was shut out for the third time this week, and held to one run or less for the fourth time over that stretch. 

Saturday was the sixth start in Skenes' young career in that he pitched at least seven innings and allowed two runs or fewer. The Pirates are only 3-3 in those starts. They are not only wasting individual starts. They are wasting the few years they have him before they inevitably trade him to a team willing to pay him in the future. 

With Saturday's defeat, the Pirates are now 8-14 on the season and entered the day 29th in team batting average, 24th in on-base percentage, 28th in slugging percentage, 28th in OPS and 23rd in runs scored. With little help on the way in the upper levels of the farm system and an increasingly incompetent front office, none of this is going to change anytime soon.