Skenes discusses velocity dip, what changed in his last start

ST. LOUIS -- Before the Pirates left for their current road trip, Paul Skenes had a conversation that put his mind at ease.

With the Tigers in town, Skenes wound up chatting with Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander about velocity. Pittsburgh’s ace described what he’s gone through this season and asked questions, and the future member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame offered him some perspective.

Verlander experienced a similar velocity dip in his third pro season and shared what he went through with Skenes.

“He was like, ‘My third year, I just lost my velo. I was completely healthy. It kind of just went away, and then it came back.’” Skenes said Friday, relaying contents of the conversation. “I was like, ‘You know what, Justin? That’s kind of good to hear.’ It’s not just me.”

While Baseball Savant only started tracking velocity in 2008 -- Verlander’s third full season -- there are facts to back up the story.

When Verlander pitched the first of his three no-hitters on June 12, 2007, his fastball topped out at 102 mph. The next year, it averaged 94.3 mph, despite Verlander being healthy and making 33 starts.

By 2009, Verlander’s average fastball jumped back up to 96.3 mph, the best of any of his tracked velocities on Savant (2008-present).

Skenes’ velocity has probably been scrutinized more than that of Verlander due to social media and Skenes winning the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award within his first two seasons. But it’s been no less confounding.

Skenes admitted as much. But he also described the depth of what’s evaluated between every start -- including nuanced stuff like degrees lost or gained within a pitcher’s hip rotation -- and he said nothing he’s seen explains the velocity drop.

“It’s been frustrating,” Skenes said. “But the thing I’ve kind of realized is that I do everything I can. There’s an answer there somewhere. But the answer might just be, ‘Your velo is down.’

“We see all the numbers. We can try to address it. We can do all that. To some extent, it’s kind of just how it is.”

Skenes also referenced changes in how his body moves from start to start, and the last one was a step in the right direction with that stuff.

Over six innings of scoreless, walk-less ball Tuesday in San Diego, Skenes described his body as “a little more in sync.”

“Everything is just having awareness of your hand at release,” Skenes said. “It’s amazing how small things can be up the chain that would throw that off.”

It’s a connectedness Skenes has been searching for at various times this season, especially after producing three straight quality starts in mid-June.

From June 26 through Aug. 5, Skenes made eight starts and had a 6.26 ERA while allowing 18 walks in 41 2/3 innings. That average of 3.9 walks per nine is nearly twice his career rate (2.2).

At the same time, when it came to the data Skenes and the Pirates analyzed, there wasn’t anything alarmingly out of place when it came to how his body was moving.

For context, Skenes was asked what he changed. He politely declined to go into detail, saying he wants to keep that to himself and described the process of making tweaks as “complicated and boring.”

“We do assessments all the time,” Skenes said. “I’ll stay vague, but I’ll get a little specific. From one assessment to the next, your hip range can gain or lose like 30 degrees -- which is a lot. I have pretty good range. It’s just kind of how my body is.

“But looking at my assessments this year, nothing crazy has happened. If there was, we would have addressed it. What has happened this year, probably for that stretch in like June through the beginning of August, was that the velocity went down.

“We’ll try to address it. But you also have to understand what’s in your control and what’s not in your control. That was kind of not in my control. My next outing, I could be 95-97 [mph] again. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it.”

Skenes does believe there’s a consistent bounceback in velocity available, and he was glad to hear Verlander went through something similar.

In the meantime, Skenes said he’s more focused on executing pitches, his delivery being in sync, challenging hitters and working ahead in counts.

He did that against the Padres. The result was his velocity ticking up from 96.8 mph to 97.2, as he allowed no walks and threw first-pitch strikes to 15 of 21 batters.

It might’ve been Skenes’ best start since May, and he’s hoping what he changed this time sticks.

“I’ve realized there’s kind of a buffer window,” Skenes said, talking about adjusting things between starts. “Sometimes when we’re making mechanical changes as we will throughout the season, just because your range of motion changes, your strengths change -- stuff like that -- you have to take all that into account. That will then affect the cues that you do in-game.

“I can think of probably a handful of starts the past three years that have been really messy because we’re screwing with something. But then the next start, it’s very clean. Sometimes it’s immediate.

“It’s just being proactive. The biggest thing is staying healthy.”