Giants vs Pirates Preview: Can Skenes Shut Down San Francisco?
Updated September 1, 2026
Updated September 1, 2026
The San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates open a three-game series Tuesday night at PNC Park, with first pitch scheduled for 6:40 p.m. EDT. And despite both teams having disappointing seasons, we should get a pretty fun pitching matchup to start the series.
Logan Webb (8-8, 3.72 ERA) will get the start for San Francisco against Paul Skenes (9-11, 3.79 ERA), giving us a matchup between two of the better pitchers in the National League.
Neither team has much to celebrate as we enter the final month of the regular season, but both will be looking to finish things on a high note. Can Skenes keep building off a strong finish to August, or will Webb and the Giants spoil the start of Pittsburgh’s homestand? Let’s make a prediction and preview some of the biggest storylines to watch Tuesday night.
I’m taking the Pirates to win at 58¢ on Polymarket on Tuesday night. Yes, Paul Skenes has had a somewhat underwhelming season by his standards, posting a career-worst 3.79 ERA across 145 innings with a 2.6 WAR. Those certainly aren’t bad numbers, but they’re probably not what most people expected from a guy who entered the year widely considered one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Still, I’m expecting a solid outing from the former LSU right-hander against a Giants team in a bit of a weird travel spot. San Francisco played a lone makeup game in Atlanta on Monday evening and now has to turn around and travel to Pittsburgh for the start of this three-game series.
Meanwhile, the Pirates have been one of baseball’s best offenses at home this season, averaging more than 5.3 runs per game at PNC Park. They should have a chance to get to Logan Webb, who has been noticeably better in San Francisco this year. Webb owns a 4.16 ERA on the road compared to a 3.39 ERA at home.
For more data and analysis on Tuesday’s game, check out our Giants vs Pirates matchup page, where the ATS Quantitative Model likes Under 7.5 as its top prediction with a 3.05% model edge.
As we mentioned before, Paul Skenes hasn’t exactly had a career year in 2026. After finishing last season with a 1.97 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, and 216 strikeouts across 187.2 innings, Skenes has come back down to earth quite a bit this year.
And just to put into perspective how good he was in 2025, Skenes finished with the fourth-highest WAR in baseball, trailing only a few names you’ve probably heard of before: Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and Cristopher Sánchez.
It’s been a different story this season. Skenes has a 3.79 ERA through 145 innings, while his WAR has dropped all the way to 2.6. There’s been plenty of speculation about what might be behind the drop-off, including potential off-the-field distractions, but whatever the reason, we just haven’t seen the same dominant version of Skenes on a consistent basis.
That said, his last start was certainly encouraging. Skenes tossed six scoreless innings against the Padres, allowing just three hits and no walks while striking out four in a 1-0 Pirates win. He’ll look to build on that performance Tuesday night and put together a strong September to close out the season.
The Pirates won’t have an easy matchup at the plate either, as they’ll be going up against Giants ace Logan Webb. The right-hander was especially sharp in August, posting a 2.83 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, and 4.17 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the month.
And even those numbers are somewhat inflated by one unusually rough outing against the Red Sox on August 21. Webb lasted just 2.2 innings in that start, allowing five earned runs on six hits and three walks.
The problem has been getting him enough support. The Giants won just two of Webb’s five starts in August, and they’ve also dropped four of his last five starts on the road.
To their credit, though, San Francisco’s offense has finally started to show some life. The Giants have scored six or more runs in five of their last six games, so Webb will be hoping that hot stretch continues Tuesday night in Pittsburgh.
Polymarket currently gives the Pirates just a 2-3% chance of making the postseason this year, which would be their first playoff appearance since 2015. You can currently buy “Yes” at around 2.8¢ or “No” at 98¢.
And it’s pretty easy to see why the market isn’t giving Pittsburgh much of a chance. The Pirates enter Tuesday at 67-71, sitting fourth in the NL Central and 18 games behind Milwaukee for first place, so the division is pretty much out of the question.
The Wild Card race isn’t quite as hopeless, but there’s still a lot of ground to make up. Pittsburgh sits six games behind San Diego for the third and final NL Wild Card spot, with Arizona, Miami, and St. Louis all ahead of them as well.
Clearly, things are stacked against the Pirates right now, but crazier things have happened. If they’re going to make any sort of late push, it’ll need to start with an impressive showing against a Giants team that has greatly underperformed in Tony Vitello’s first season as manager. San Francisco enters this series at just 57-81, sitting fourth in the NL West and ahead of only the Colorado Rockies.
For more analysis as the playoff races heat up, check out our daily MLB predictions for the latest games and picks from around the league.
