By JUSTIN GUERRIERO

The Tribune-Review, Greensburg

(TNS) —On paper, a quality start from Paul Skenes should provide the Pittsburgh Pirates with enough of a boost to come out on top in any given game.

However, Tuesday evening in St. Louis, the nosediving Pirates (12-25) demonstrated again that a solid start from Skenes isn’t always sufficient.

Skenes (3-4, 2.77 ERA) was charged with the loss in the Pirates’ 2-1 defeat, having allowed a game-winning tworun double to Alec Burleson in the sixth inning after his club crafted a 1-0 lead a half-inning earlier.

The Pirates managed only four hits in the defeat, the seventh time this season (19% of their total games played) they’ve been held to four or less.

Skenes’ outing was the 15th quality start by a Pirates pitcher this season, of which the club has now dropped five.

Add five wins to the Pirates’ column and the conversation surrounding the 2025 club in early May — namely how things are spiraling out of control at an increasingly fast rate — might be substantially different.

Regardless of who’s on the mound, the Pirates realize that offensively, things haven’t been up to snuff.

“Not only just for (Skenes) but everybody — the pitchers, starters and the bullpen have been doing a really good job,” third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes said on Tuesday’s SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “We’ve just to pick them up and score runs, however that may be, whether it be drawing walks, getting that big hit. We’ve got to find a way to put up runs.”

Through 37 games, the Pirates’ team ERA of 4.28 ranks 23rd in baseball.

Opposing batters are hitting .242 against Pirates pitchers, which is tied for 17th, while the club’s 1.27 WHIP ranks 14th.

Offensively, the Pirates’ team batting average of .221 is fourth-lowest in baseball, while their .302 on-base percentage (24th) and .634 OPS (28th) also rank towards the bottom of the barrel.

In 20 of the Pirates’ games, they’ve managed seven or less hits, with 15 resulting in losses.

Amid an ongoing sluggish offensive start to the season, manager Derek Shelton continues to search for answers.

“We’ve just got to figure it out offensively,” Shelton said. “We’re not being very consistent offensively. We’re not getting things going. We’ve tried some different lineups, we’ve tried lineup changes, we’ve tried consistency in lineups, so I think it’s just something that we’ve got to keep exploring.”

Only a handful of players have offered the Pirates consistent offensive production.

Oneil Cruz, who’s slashing .246/.381/.492, leading the Pirates in homers (eight) and walks (25), has been solid atop the order.

Veteran Andrew McCutchen (.255) is batting well enough, while Hayes (.254) has been heating up of late. But Bryan Reynolds, the Pirates’ No. 2 batter, is hitting only .224 on the year and .167 in May.

Granted, he isn’t far removed from a two-run homer hit Monday in the series opener at St. Louis.

But the Pirates are becoming desperate for regular contributions from the rest of the lineup.

“Bryan Reynolds has swung the bat better as of late,” Shelton said. “(Andrew McCutchen) has been pretty consistent throughout the year. Oneil, since (batting leadoff from) April 16, has been really, really good. It’s just got to be contributions from up and down.

“The word consistency is what comes back. We just haven’t had consistent at-bats. When you don’t have consistent at-bats, you end up not scoring any runs, and that’s kind of where we’re at right now.”

Entering Wednesday’s series finale in St. Louis, 125 games remain for the Pirates in 2025.

To finish 76-86, their record in 2023 and 2024, the club would have to go 64-61 to close out the season.

As aspirations evaporate for this year to be competitive, or even serve as a building block from the last two seasons, Shelton tries to avoid big-picture diagnoses.

“I don’t think we can’t think about that,” Shelton said. “I think we have to think about consistency. But yeah, we’ve got to get going.”

As for the players themselves, no one is pretending to possess the answers on how to start hitting far more effectively.

“We’ve encountered a little bit of a rough patch,” Hayes said. “We’ve just got to figure it out first individually, what we’ve got to do, and then collectively as a team, how to do it. We’re right now in most of the games.

“I don’t know if it’s slowing the game down or just — I don’t really know exactly what it is — but we’ve got to figure out what we need to do to get on a hot streak.”