{"id":525722,"date":"2026-03-15T22:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T22:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/525722\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T22:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T22:05:13","slug":"pirates-ace-paul-skenes-shares-thoughts-on-dominican-republics-loaded-lineup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/525722\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Ace Paul Skenes Shares Thoughts On Dominican Republic\u2019s Loaded Lineup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes will make one of the biggest starts of his life<\/a> tonight in the World Baseball Classic semifinal game between Team USA and the Dominican Republic at LoanDepot Park in Miami.<\/p>\n

The DR boasts a fearsome lineup led by Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and other star sluggers. Collectively, they\u2019re batting .312\/.453\/.637 with a tournament-leading 51 runs, so they\u2019re swinging hot bats.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Is Skenes nervous to face such an impressive collection of sluggers with a trip to the finals on the line? Of course not.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t care less who I pitch against,\u201d Skenes said in a media session<\/a> earlier this week.<\/p>\n

And why should he? Skenes has already started two MLB All-Star Games and thrown a scoreless inning both times, so he\u2019s handled similar lineups before.<\/p>\n

The reigning NL Cy Young winner has also dominated DR\u2019s starters in the past. Their starting lineup is a combined 3-for-27 against him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Skenes was terrific in his previous WBC outing<\/a> on Monday, firing four shutout innings of one-hit ball against Mexico during pool play.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old righty has a career 1.96 ERA for a reason. He\u2019s arguably the best pitcher in baseball and his electric stuff is borderline unhittable, regardless of who\u2019s standing in the batter\u2019s box.<\/p>\n

More Pirates: How to Watch Paul Skenes in World Baseball Classic: Channel, Live Stream for USA vs. Dominican Republic<\/a><\/p>\n

The post Pirates Ace Paul Skenes Shares Thoughts On Dominican Republic\u2019s Loaded Lineup<\/a> appeared first on SportsNet Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes will make one of the biggest starts of his life tonight in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":525723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[44626,7842,10004,2821,363,10000,2240,99,12000,72364],"class_list":["post-525722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-dominican-republic","tag-juan-soto","tag-manny-machado","tag-miami","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports","tag-vladimir-guerrero-jr","tag-world-baseball-classic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}