Around the Curve | Skenes-Mania Heats Up in Pittsburgh

CURVE, Pa. – April was the month of Jared Jones for the Pirates. May sparked Skenes-mania.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have two of baseball’s most exciting pitching prospects in Jones and Paul Skenes, not to mention Mitch Keller has won five starts in a row and Baily Falter has begun to show promise on the hill.

Baseball’s top prospect has lived up to the hype in his first five starts as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Skenes is 3-0 with a 3.00 ERA in 27.0 innings with 38 strikeouts. He has lit up the radar gun, faced off against baseball’s biggest stars, and put together a resume to become a star himself; and it’s only been a month.

Let’s start with the heat. Skenes displayed his triple-digit velocity last season in Altoona, and its back in full force this season. In his seven starts in Triple-A this season, he had accounted for 104 of this year’s 105 fastest pitches in the Minor Leagues. Now, he is averaging a 99-mph fastball and has reached as high as 101 mph in the Majors.

It is almost poetic of sorts for Skenes to share a Pirates roster with Aroldis Chapman, who has the fastest ball thrown in the Majors this season at 104 mph. Chapman inspired this current generation of velocity-seekers with his impressive heater over his long career, and he now pitches on a staff with Jones and Skenes who can hit triple-digits on the regular.

Skenes topped 100 mph 16 times in his last start against the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team who has struggled against top velocity this season. But what Paul brings to the table is more than just the fastball. His wipeout slider dazzled at LSU and has shown promise in the big leagues, but it’s a different “off-speed” pitch that has players talking.

Meet the Splinker.

It’s a hybrid pitch between a splitter and sinker, and Skenes has mastered it. An average splitter might sit in the mid-to-upper 80s. Paul’s splinker averages around 94 mph.

According to Alex Stumpf of MLB.com, only nine pitchers have ever thrown a splitter 95 mph or harder since the pitch tracking era began in 2008, and Paul is now one of them. The pitch carries the velocity of a fastball but the vertical drop of a splitter, and it has served as an effective offering.

Skenes has already had his fair share of massive moments in his first five starts, such as striking out seven in a row to start his second start in Chicago to become the first pitcher since 1900 to have an outing of 6+ innings with at least 10 strikeouts and no hits allowed in his first or second career appearance.

However, his matchup against one specific Dodger will have baseball minds raving for quite some time.

When Skenes was in high school, he was in the stands at Angel Stadium to watch the first MLB start for new-budding stateside prospect Shohei Ohtani. Fast forward six years, and the two squared off in a battle of the game’s biggest names.

Round one went to Skenes with a strikeout. When Skenes faced Ohtani in the first inning, it was the first at-bat tracked in the MLB in the pitch-tracking era (since 2008) that featured three 100+ mph pitches and three swings and misses for a strikeout.

Round two went to Ohtani, who drew a full count before knocking a home run into center field on a 100-mph fastball. It was the game’s biggest name against the game’s brightest star, and it did not disappoint.

When Skenes is on the mound, he brings the best out of the whole team. He became the first pitcher to debut in the expansion era (since 1961) to get five or more runs of support from his offense in each of his first five MLB starts. The Pirates average nearly nine runs of support in his starts, totaling 42 runs across his five starts. For comparison, Jared Jones has received 33 runs of support in 12 starts this season. The Pirates are 4-1 in games where Skenes has pitched.

Fans have resonated with Skenes-Mania. You can glance around PNC Park on Skenes start days and find hundreds of Skenes shirts, LSU caps, and fake mustaches. Pirates fans have clamored for years to have a rotation come together like it has this season, but with Skenes – Jones – Keller headlining the rotation, the future looks bright in Pittsburgh.

Many claim Skenes to be the best pitching prospect since Stephen Strasberg or Gerrit Cole. These lofty comparisons have set the bar high on the mound for the 6-foot-6 hurler, but after a month in the show, he has lived up to the hype.

*This story was printed in Volume 25 Issue 5 of the Curve Chronicle for the June 11-16 homestand.*