Paul Skenes’ start interrupted by possible fart

For the first time in his young Major League Baseball career, Paul Skenes wasn’t the most interesting part of a Pittsburgh Pirates broadcast.

The conversation after Tuesday night’s Pirates game could be about another dominant start from Skenes. It could be about St. Louis Cardinals fans bizarrely giving Skenes a standing ovation after he was pulled from the game. We could probably even find a reason to make the conversation about Livvy Dunne. But we’re not. And that’s the power of a fart.

Play-by-play voice Greg Brown was joined by analyst Neil Walker in the SportsNet Pittsburgh TV booth Tuesday night. And while we’re not going to accuse or blame anyone, it certainly sounded like someone tooted near a microphone in the Pirates TV booth.

The flatulence in question occurred in the fourth inning, with Walker and Brown talking about the Cardinals hitters and their exit velocity off Skenes.

“95 and higher considered ‘hard hits,’” Brown noted before taking a brief pause.

That’s when it happened, whatever it was. Someone in the booth either let one rip or accidentally stepped on a duck.

“Barrel balls I guess you’d say,” Brown continued rather seamlessly after the incident. “One ball one strike.”

If it wasn’t a toot in the booth, what was it? Other potential on-air farts have been blamed on sneezes, chairs, ice skates, windshield wipers, and nose blowing. But this one? This one sounded like a fart. A fart-like sound big enough to overshadow Paul Skenes’s latest start.

[SportsNet Pittsburgh]