DENVER -- Prior to Saturday night’s 2-1 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field -- in a game that ended in one of the most unusual ways you’ll ever see a baseball game end -- Pirates manager Don Kelly said that Paul Skenes has set the bar so high after winning the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 2024, and then the NL Cy Young Award last year, that when he has an “off” stretch on the mound (by his standards), it seems peculiar.
“It just speaks to the talent he’s got, and expectations that are a little bit elevated for him,” Kelly said. “And he set that bar with what he did the first two years. And there’s nobody that expects more out of Paul Skenes than Paul Skenes expects out of himself. … And when we talk about his ‘down’ starts, they’re still pretty good.”
Skenes was pretty good on Saturday against Colorado in the most hitter-friendly park in the Majors, limiting the Rockies to two runs on four hits, walking two and striking out eight over six innings. He also hit two batters, and gave up an inside-the-park home run to the first batter he faced, Jake McCarthy.
But “pretty good” for the average MLB starting pitcher is not where Skenes wants to be. Saturday’s outing was Skenes’ third consecutive start in which he yielded two runs, and his season ERA stands at 2.86. He has struck out 107 batters in 88 innings and continues to be one of the elite starters in the game. His career ERA is 2.16.
But it’s not resulting in wins -- for Skenes or the Pirates, who have now lost seven straight games Skenes has started. That’s because, beyond Skenes not pitching to his incredibly high standards, the Pirates have not been scoring runs in his starts.
For the second consecutive game, the Bucs had the tying run at third with nobody out in the ninth inning -- in fact, for the second time in as many games, they had the bases loaded and fewer than two outs while down a run in the ninth.
In both cases, they failed to score. According to OptaSTATS, Pittsburgh is the only MLB team in the last 50 years to have the tying run on third base with nobody out in the ninth inning in consecutive games, only to lose both games.
Skenes said his stuff was fine, even in Denver’s elevation. But his execution wasn’t.
“I didn't want to throw the ball into the hitter's feet, but the ball just wanted to go there instead of the strike zone sometimes,” Skenes said. “Obviously hit a couple guys, walked a couple guys. Just command overall wasn't great. Wasn't getting ahead of guys. You're going to have those outings. Just kind of throw everything out the window and figure out how to get outs.”
Skenes did figure out how to get outs. You’ll take two runs over six innings at Coors Field any day. But the results lately haven’t been reminiscent of the Skenes of 2024 or ’25, the one who posted a 1.97 ERA over his first two Major League seasons -- the lowest by any pitcher over his first 55 career starts in the Live Ball Era (since 1920).
Skenes, though, didn’t seem fazed. In fact, he said that he’s pleased with his overall performance this season, so much so that he feels he’s been “better this year than last year, which might not show up on the stat sheet.”
The underlying numbers back that up, to a degree. According to Statcast, Skenes entered the day ranked in the 88th percentile or better in expected ERA (2.50, 96th), expected batting average against (.199, 88th), strikeout percentage (30.4%, 94th) and walk rate (4.9%, 96th).
“It's a fickle game,” he said. “It's just how it is. You’ve got to look at what's real, what's not real. … It’s just being objective. Feelings get in the way of winning. If you get emotional, you start trying harder to do stuff you don’t need to be doing when you’re in a game, and over the course of a season, too.”
With Brewers flamethrowing phenom Jacob Misiorowksi and Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez having incredible seasons, Skenes has stiff competition in his bid to win a second straight NL Cy Young Award.
But for him, what’s important in this moment is continuing to get better at dealing with not being perfect.
“It's really easy to let outside stuff kind of creep in,” Skenes said. “I'm not perfect at it, by any means. Nobody is. But I’ve had a few years and kind of figured out a good routine to mitigate that as much as possible.”