Demilio: It Wasn’t Quite the Typical ‘Skenes Day’

For much of his brief tenure with the Pittsburgh Pirates, games with Paul Skenes on the mound have felt like meaningful ones late in the year.

“Skenes Day” has become a phenomenon on the city’s North Shore. There’s a noticeably different buzz in the atmosphere leading up to and through games when the big right-hander toes the rubber.

From his unorthodox pregame warmup through the final pitch of his outing, Skenes’ start days have displayed how truly great of a baseball town Pittsburgh can be and has been. There’s a heightened amount of excitement in the stands when Skenes pitches, something PNC Park hasn’t necessarily seen a lot of during its existence. 

Skenes was once again on the mound for the Pirates in a home matchup against the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday night. 

But despite a 7-0 win for the Pirates and a masterful start from Skenes, it felt more like a typical late-August game in Pittsburgh, and you can’t blame the fans for it reaching that point. To be fair, the fans in attendance were both loud and engaged. But there were only 16,635 of them on hand to watch Skenes’ 17th-career outing – the lowest attended Skenes’ start by a fairly large margin. 

Skenes was as electric as he’s ever been. He tossed six-scoreless innings, allowed a pair of singles, walked one, struck out nine and was once again hitting 100 mph on the radar gun. But fan interest has understandably wavered, not necessarily in Skenes, but in the 2024 Pirates as a whole. 

The Pirates were in the thick of the wild card race as recently as the beginning of August. However, a disastrous stretch during the month has all but eliminated their chances of returning to the postseason for the first time since 2015. After their win on Thursday, the Pirates are just 5-15 in their last 20 games. They’ve slipped to last place in the division and are eight games out in the wild card race. 

It didn’t help, either, that the weather in Pittsburgh the last few days leading up to Skenes’ start has felt more like crisp autumn days instead of sweltering summer ones. 

It’s usually around this time that sports fans in Pittsburgh start to shift their attention from the Pirates to the start of the Steelers’ season. For the majority of my 26 years of life, football has dominated this city. The Steelers have had three Super Bowl appearances in my lifetime while the Pirates have had only four winning seasons, so I get it.

Given another Pirates’ collapse, a more expected attendance at PNC Park despite the starting pitcher being the must-see rookie phenom is a clear indication of the annual shift in fan support to down the road at Acrisure Stadium.

The start of a season is full of excitement, optimism and a blind sense of belief that this could be the year. That’s what many Steelers’ fans are thinking right now – even with an ugly start to preseason play.

Pirates’ fans are thinking more about another false hope and questions about when what looks like another losing season will instead be one that ends after the regular season is over. 

While this year certainly had plenty of promise, it looks like it will end up in an all-too-familiar place, and not even Paul Skenes could make that reality feel any different.