Paul Skenes Battles Adversity in Another Masterful Outing
Pirates ace Paul Skenes didn’t pitch his best on Sunday, July 27, but one wouldn’t know it from the box score. The 6-foot-6, 260 pound right-hander struck out nine batters across six scoreless innings, allowing just three hits as Pittsburgh picked up a 6-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Each of those three hits went for extra bases, two doubles and a triple, and none came with more than one out. As a result, Skenes needed to work through traffic… and did so with aplomb, blanking the Diamondbacks with an 0-for-7 streak with runners in scoring position. In doing so, Skenes lowered his ERA to a miniscule 1.83 on the season, 64 points lower than Matthew Boyd, his next closest competitor in the National League… putting him in pole position for a Cy Young award during his first full season in the big leagues.
Lowkey as ever, Skenes attributed his success to proper execution. He added that needing strikeouts to keep Arizona off the board damaged his efficiency as he tried to bait swings on noncompetitive pitches.
“Just executing. I think that was another thing that drove the pitch count up, just ‘cause you get a runner on second, runner on third I mean, really just in general, they’re probably gonna swing early more often,” Skenes said.
“And so we were just going chase pitches a little earlier in the count and they either swing or it’s a ball with a lot of those. so yeah, that kind of drove the pitch count up, but you know, I ended up executing.”
Battling the Elements
The Diamondbacks drove up Skenes’ pitch count early, forcing him to throw 20 pitches in the first inning and 19 more in the second. Even worse, game time temperatures sat in the mid-80s, humidity as high as 84 percent. After laboring through the top of the first, Skenes barely had time to collect himself. A five-pitch frame from Arizona starter Zac Gallen forced him right back onto the mound.
Skenes said the brutal conditions helped him focus on the moment.
“I mean, honestly, I think that heat kind of helped to an extent ’cause I was just focused on staying out there and not passing out or throwing up or anything, so I was just focusing on making the next pitch rather than anything else. So I think that helped. It definitely made it harder, but yeah, I thought it was a good job,” Skenes said. “We have a fan down under. I sat down for a second [in the bottom of the first] and got some water. To an extent, I like short innings because you don’t have time to settle in. So probably could have used a little bit more rest, but it was obviously fine.”
Ending With a Flourish
Paul Skenes battled with Geraldo Perdomo for eight pitches to begin the sixth inning, the talented shortstop fouling off four different pitches in a row before grounding out on a splitter down in the zone. Skenes then fanned power hitter Eugenio Suárez, owner of 38 home runs on the season, in three pitches, bringing up lefty bat Angel Del Castillo.
With his ace sitting at 98 pitches, Pirates manager Don Kelly used a mound visit to check on his status — much to the chagrin of Pirates fans whose boos echoed around PNC Park.
Skenes described his conversation with Kelly… and made it clear he had no intention of leaving the game.
“He walked out, I think it was like in Minnesota, like he wanted to get talked out of it, So I was just like, ‘hey Donnie, what do you got?’ And he was like, ‘What do you got?’ And I’m like, ‘I got another hitter,’” Skenes said. “And that was it. So I felt bad when I saw him walking out, because I knew we were going to burn a visit, but didn’t end up needing it, so our relievers stepped up and did a good job…I understand them [the boos], I was a fan. I did the same thing. But, yeah, I felt good and I wasn’t coming out there.”
Skenes needed just one pitch to retire Del Castillo, inducing a fly ball to end his day, the finishing touch on a masterful performance with far greater tension than the scoresheet might indicate.
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