AP Photo
\nPittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes throws against the Tampa Bay Rays in the second inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Saturday, April 18, 2026.<\/p>\n
PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 The Pirates\u2019 Paul Skenes escaped an early jam and was rolling along with a three-hitter through four innings against Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n
Then the rains came, causing a two-plus hour delay. Skenes would not return and Pittsburgh\u2019s 4-0 lead quickly dissolved once the game resumed.<\/p>\n
Cedric Mullins led off the 13th inning with a two-run home run and the Rays outlasted the Pirates 8-7 on a wet Saturday night.<\/p>\n
Mullins\u2019 blast to right field off Yohan Ramirez scored automatic runner Jonny DeLuca. Mullins entered the day hitting just .129 after signing with Tampa Bay in the offseason as a free agent.<\/p>\n
Griffin Jax (1-2) pitched a scoreless 12th. Yoendrys Gomez allowed a run-scoring single to rookie Konnor Griffin in the bottom of the 13th, then struck out Joey Bart with runners on second and third to end it.<\/p>\n
Both teams scored a run in the 11th. The Rays\u2019 Taylor Walls came around from first on a wild pickoff throw by Ramirez (2-1). The Pirates countered with Griffin\u2019s run-scoring fielder\u2019s choice.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh tied it at 5 in the eighth on rookie Nick Yorke\u2019s RBI single.<\/p>\n
The first pitch was moved up 30 minutes in hopes that the teams could beat the rain. However, play was stopped for 2 hours, 27 minutes, with the Pirates leading 4-0.<\/p>\n
The Rays then scored five runs in the fifth to take a 5-4 lead. Junior Caminero doubled in the first run and scored on Jonathan Aranda\u2019s single. Two batters later, pinch-hitter DeLuca lined a two-run single to center field, and Mullins followed with a go-ahead single.<\/p>\n
Skenes, pitching on his bobblehead day in front of a sellout crowd at PNC Park, escaped a bases-loaded jam with none out in the second. The 2025 NL Cy Young Award winner walked none and struck out five before his departure.<\/p>\n
Rays starter Drew Rasmussen gave up two-run home runs to Ryan O\u2019Hearn in the first inning and Marcell Ozuna in the fourth, but the Pirates couldn\u2019t hold the 4-0 lead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AP Photo Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes throws against the Tampa Bay Rays in the second inning of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,877,64,297,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-679297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-paul-skenes","11":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","12":"tag-rays","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116432799296508671","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}