'Win or lose,' Skenes out to control what he can control

PITTSBURGH -- In his young Major League career, Paul Skenes has thrice pitched at least eight innings. In those three outings, he allowed a total of four runs and struck out at least eight batters all three times.

But Skenes has taken the loss in all three of those games. That includes Tuesday at PNC Park, where a mistake pitch to Christian Walker was launched for a solo shot, the only blemish over his eight innings.

“He’s got a lot of pitches and they are all pretty elite,” Walker said. “But you’ve got to be on the fastball, got to be on the heater. It’s 100 mph. So, I just tried to sell out on the fastball as much as I could, and he ended up hanging [a sweeper]. I just recognized and finally found a barrel.”

The bats didn’t back Skenes up, and the Pirates fell to the Astros, 3-0. If that outcome sounds familiar, well, it’s because it’s the second time in 2 1/2 weeks that Skenes pitched eight innings of one-run ball on three hits allowed and struck out at least eight in a losing effort. The other was May 18 against the Phillies.

That’s been the norm too often for Skenes in 2025. He entered the year a Cy Young favorite, and he’s certainly lived up to the hype. His 2.05 ERA is the second lowest in the National League. He’s leading the Majors in innings pitched (83 1/3) and is tops in the NL in WHIP (0.88) and batting average against (.181).

Despite all that, he is sitting at a 4-6 record.

“Unfortunately, it's baseball,” Skenes said. “I know we did a good job against [Diamondbacks starter Zac] Gallen last time out. From what it seemed, [Lance] McCullers did a good job today. I don't know. I don't watch the offense a ton in terms of process and sticking within our plan -- I'm not the right guy to ask. But it just goes back to controlling what we can control. It is what it is."

For what he could control whenever his toe touched the rubber on Tuesday, Skenes was brilliant. He may have hung a sweeper to Walker, but he leaned on it heavily and got stellar results with it, including three of his eight strikeouts. The four-seamer continued to stay in the high-90s and he was efficient.

Skenes just didn’t get any support. Spencer Horwitz hit three balls hard, all for outs. Nick Gonzales and Oneil Cruz were caught stealing in the seventh and eighth. The offense produced only four hits.

Run production has been an issue all season, but the bats did come alive this past West Coast road trip, which included a 10-run outpouring in Skenes’ last time out. Gonzales returned to the lineup after his non-displaced left ankle fracture, so this was arguably the first time all season that the Pirates had their preseason A-lineup on the field (the one difference being Alexander Canario over Tommy Pham in left field, which has been the norm of late). It didn’t yield anything the first time out.

“I think where it does get frustrating is Paul puts up a great start and we don't score any runs there, and I think that it's something that everybody feels,” manager Don Kelly said. “I just don't want to overreact to it. Yes, it's a big deal, we need to be better, but we did a really good job on the road trip to find ways to piece some together and score some runs. Get back to doing that tomorrow."

Kelly was complimentary of how Skenes and the rotation have been able to do their jobs despite inconsistent run production. It all goes back to that recurring theme Skenes keeps circling back to lately: focus on what you can control.

“You look at what happened last game, I got 10 runs of support,” Skenes said. “I still got to go out there and put up zeroes. That’s controlling what I can control. It would be very easy for me to go out there and ... start throwing stuff down the middle because I got 10 runs behind me. Win or lose, that’s what you have to do.”