Reusse: Exceptional Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes draws a crowd, or was it Nelly?

There was a ballgame played in Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium on the night of Oct. 14, 1992. Doug Drabek stifled the hometown Braves for eight innings and his Pittsburgh Pirates took a 2-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth.

A victory in this seventh game would return the Pirates to the World Series for the first time since 1979. The Braves stirred a rally that was assisted by an error from second baseman Jose Lind.

Eventually, the Pirates were leading 2-1, reliever Stan Belinda was in and the Braves had the bases loaded with two outs.

Atlanta manager Bobby Cox sent up seldom-used Francisco Cabrera as a hitter. He singled into left and David Justice trotted in from third to tie the score. Sid Bream was chugging from second with a hitch in his get-along, but left fielder Barry Bonds’ throw had a loop to it and Slewfoot Sid was safe.

Braves 3, Pirates 2.

Instant madness in Atlanta. And long-term sadness in Pittsburgh.

The 28-year-old Bonds took his then-normal hat size to San Francisco as a free agent. The loss of Barry and other departures sent the low-budget Pirates careening into a streak of 20 consecutive losing seasons.

The Pirates had used the first choice in the 2011 draft to select righthander Gerrit Cole from UCLA. He entered the rotation in 2013, and Pittsburgh had three straight winning seasons. In 2015, Cole went 19-8 with a 2.60 ERA, the Pirates reached 98-64 but then lost 4-0 to the Cubs and Jake Arrieta in a wild-card game.

Cole had some elbow inflammation in 2016, was outstanding again in 2017 and, as free agency beckoned, the Pirates traded him to Houston in January 2018 for about the lowest return of talent imaginable.

The Pirates are now headed for a seventh consecutive losing season. In 2023, they had the first overall selection and took Paul Skenes, a transfer from Air Force to LSU, and a big horse of a righthanded pitcher in the archetype of Cole.

He would be the starter for the Pirates on Friday night at Target Field. He also is anticipated to do the same for the National League next Tuesday night in Atlanta.

On this Friday, there certainly would be people attracted by the magic of an excellent matchup of starters — Skenes vs. Twins All-Star Joe Ryan — but the hurlers did get some help in selling out the ballyard.

The Twins had lined up a veteran musician named Nelly, and the customers kept coming until the Twins were able to announce 40,100 as the attendance.

It was such a full house that a veteran of the Twin Cities sports scene suspected that bringing out the tarp around 7 p.m. and fumbling around the infield was a ruse to push the starting time back a half-hour.

There were thousands outside the gates still trying to get in at the advertised 7:10 starting time and, hey, those $15 beers inside weren’t going to sell themselves.

As the no-rain delay was going on, a veteran Pirates observer in the pressbox offered a simple reason as to how Skenes (he’s great, by the way) could come into his 20th start of the season with 4-7 record attached to a 1.94 ERA.

“This is the worst hitting team the Pirates have had,” the Pittsburgh backer said. ”It has been terrible."

And it was again on Friday night. Ryan needed 34 pitches in the first, as the Pirates managed to leave the bases loaded without scoring. He was more gutsy than sharp for five innings, yet gave up only one run.

And that proved to be enough when Skenes threw Trevor Larnach a curveball in the fourth, and the Twins’ most underrated weapon powered it into the right field seats. That made it 2-1, and that’s how it finished, as the Twins bullpen relay — Coulombe to Stewart, to Varland, to Jax, to Duran — sent the crowd home happy.

Except the crowd didn’t go home. They stayed for Nelly.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was throwing praise in many directions in his postgame media session — even to Nelly, claiming to have been a disc-playing fan back in the day (when not playing Phish, his first choice).

As for Skenes, his first comment was to exclaim “He’s good!” Later, Baldelli said:

“He’s 6-foot-6, and releases the ball with his arm high — throws 99-100, great splitter, the breaking ball. And where here he’s throwing from, for a hitter, it’s almost as if the ball’s coming from behind you.

“We’d only seen him in spring training. He’s tremendous, for sure, but we hung in there. And then Trev got one pitch, and he did what he can do.”

The Pirates also did what they can do at the plate, which hasn’t been much.

Hopefully, when the Buccos get around to trading this righthanded monster of pitching, they will receive a much better ransom than for Gerrit Cole.