{"id":726526,"date":"2026-04-14T04:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/726526\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T04:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:33:12","slug":"pirates-16-5-nationals-14-apr-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/726526\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates 16-5 Nationals (14 Apr, 2026) Game Recap –"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH — \u2014 Paul Skenes<\/a> allowed one hit in six strong innings and Brandon Lowe<\/a> homered for the third time in two games, driving in five runs as the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> steamrolled the Washington Nationals<\/a> 16-5 to begin a four-game series Monday night.<\/p>\n

Skenes (3-1) struck out six and walked one, throwing a career-high 32 changeups among his 88 pitches while improving to 7-1 in his last 11 home starts. The only run he gave up came on a first-inning homer by CJ Abrams<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Lowe went 3 for 5 with a two-run single in the second and his sixth homer \u2014 a three-run shot in the Pirates’ 10-run sixth. He had a grand slam and a solo shot Sunday at Wrigley Field in a 7-6 loss<\/a> to the Cubs.<\/p>\n

Lowe became the first Pirates player to knock in at least five runs in consecutive games since RBI became an official statistic in 1920.<\/p>\n

Oneil Cruz<\/a> reached base four straight times for Pittsburgh and went 2 for 3 to extend his hitting streak to a career-high 12 games. He had three RBI and scored three runs.<\/p>\n

Bryan Reynolds<\/a> had a bases-loaded triple in the sixth and an RBI single in the second. He finished with three of the team’s 16 hits.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh has scored 38 runs in Skenes’ four starts this season after totaling 37 runs in his first 11 outings last year. <\/p>\n

Skenes struck out three in the first, but Abrams hit<\/a> a 99.5 mph fastball on a full count for his fifth home run and a 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Cruz’s bases-loaded walk tied it in the second against Cade Cavalli<\/a> (0-1) before Lowe’s two-run single and Reynolds’ run-scoring single chased the right-hander after he allowed four runs in 1 1\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

Spencer Horwitz<\/a> hit his first homer of the season leading off the third against Paxton Schultz<\/a> for a 5-1 advantage.<\/p>\n

Konnor Griffin<\/a> added an RBI single in Pittsburgh’s 10-run sixth.<\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 Urquidy allowed six hits and four runs, two on Jacob Young<\/a>‘s second homer, as the Nationals batted around in the seventh. Evan Sisk<\/a> worked two innings and struck out the side on 10 pitches in the ninth to end it.<\/p>\n

Position player Joey Wiemer<\/a> pitched the eighth for the Nats and allowed Joey Bart<\/a>‘s sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Nationals RHP Miles Mikolas<\/a> (0-3, 12.41 ERA) starts Tuesday opposite Pirates RHP Mitch Keller<\/a> (1-0, 1.00).<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH — \u2014 Paul Skenes allowed one hit in six strong innings and Brandon Lowe homered for the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":726527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-726526","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116401196692804925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}