Cup of Joe (Starkey): Something is wrong with Pirates ace Paul Skenes, whether he admits it or not
Anybody remember Paul Skenes?
Let me refresh your memory. Pitching prodigy from LSU, first pick overall, tore through minors in 10 seconds, bombing hitters with 102-mph fastballs and devastating breaking pitches, including one he invented — a “splinker,” which nobody could hit.
It’s not hard to find footage of Skenes as a Pirate. I was just perusing a social-media post from Rob Friedman, known as Pitching Ninja, from June 23, 2024 — not that long ago — where Skenes blows away a hitter with a 102-mph fastball on his 98th pitch of a game.
Paul Skenes. 102mph…
On his 98th Pitch of the Game. ???? pic.twitter.com/26pLHUukdy
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 23, 2024
At this point, viewing video like that is like looking at footage of Mark “The Bird” Fidrych or Kerry Wood or some other pitching phenom who took the baseball world by storm, suddenly lost it and never recaptured the magic.
Has anybody seen Skenes lately?
I mean, there’s a guy wearing No. 30 for the Pirates. I see him. That isn’t Paul Skenes. That’s somebody who hasn’t thrown a 100-mph fastball all season and hasn’t reached 98 one time in his past four outings. That’s somebody who barely throws the splinker anymore, having long since abandoned it.
That’s just another guy, this No. 30, sporting a 3.90 ERA that ranks 40th in the majors. The Cincinnati Reds pummelled him in a huge game Friday night, raising his July ERA to 6.25.
No. 30 allowed 22 earned runs in July. Paul Skenes allowed 29 over his entire rookie season.
Paul Skenes was special. One of a kind. Maybe the greatest young pitcher in baseball history.
Who is this?
Codify Baseball used to post unbelievable Skenes statistics, like one from April 2024 that said Skenes had thrown 104 out of the 105 fastest pitches by all Triple-A pitchers to that point in the season.
Now, Codify posts numbers like these (which actually are even more unbelievable):
98+ MPH pitches thrown by Paul Skenes in each of his 78 career big league starts:
32, 38 34, 30, 46, 42, 32, 33, 21, 32, 21, 44, 22, 23, 14, 24, 30, 33, 40, 35, 31, 21, 11, 19, 26, 12, 29, 21, 25, 10, 22, 17, 26, 35, 27, 35, 29, 34, 29, 32, 40, 28, 30, 30, 25, 49, 35, 26, 27,…
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) August 1, 2026
In each of his first eight big league starts, Skenes threw at least 30 pitches at 98 mph or harder. In his last eight starts, he’s thrown a total of five, including none in his last four outings.
Somewhere in there, somewhere this season (after changing his offseason routine to ramp up for the World Baseball Classic) Skenes became No. 30. And even though the drop in velocity is just part of the story — a part Skenes has gone out of his way to downplay — it is positively stunning and makes you wonder if fatigue or injury has played a role in his decline.
He hasn’t reached 98 mph one time in four consecutive starts? If that doesn’t alarm the Pirates and everyone who follows them, I don’t know what would. Spare me the idea that Skenes has intentionally scaled back in order to be more efficient. How is that working out? He was at 74 pitches in the third inning Friday.
Seems to me if a guy could throw 102 mph, he would.
When No. 30 speaks for Skenes, he says things like all the advanced numbers are what they used to be, if not better, and everything is fine, and “weird” things keep happening, and he doesn’t need to change anything (although his delivery and arm angles clearly changed from the past two years, so he changed something when things were going well, oddly enough).
How does that explain the bloated ERA?
How does it explain already giving up more home runs than in each of the past two years?
How does it explain his “WHIP” rising from 0.95 to 1.11 or his “WAR” dropping from 7.6 to 1.8?
The sad part is, the Pirates could never muster enough offense to support Paul Skenes, but they are cranking out runs for No. 30 — and he keeps falling flat in the first truly important starts of his career. He lost two leads in the snap of a finger Friday, a night where it felt like the season might have gone up in flames.
Can it still be saved?
Sure. But somebody better find Paul Skenes, and fast.
