PIRATES

Just because Paul Skenes hasn’t reared back and hit triple digits with his fastball much since he debuted back in May 2024, it doesn’t mean he’s not capable of doing it. 

He surely has that in his back pocket, and he knows it. But sitting around 97, 98 mph, as he has these last two seasons, seems to be the best way for Skenes to go deeper into games, throw more innings and perform at an elite level while experiencing longevity in the major leagues. 

“It's been by design,” Skenes, who is averaging 97 mph with his fastball this season, told me this past weekend in Denver. “It's nothing I've been worried about. If you throw hard, you throw hard — you see it everywhere, it's real, and I think there are ways to get around it — but guys that throw hard get hurt. I don't think the line from A to B is straight. Like if you throw hard, you're going to get hurt, I don't think that's the case, but the biggest thing that you can do to provide for your team and for yourself is to be on the field. If you're not on the field, you're not doing anything to help the team win. So that's it. I feel that I've gotten better over the last two years. My execution has gotten better, even as the fastball velo has gone down. But I don't think in three years I'm going to be throwing 90. That's not how it's going to be. At some point it'll kind of plateau.” 

Skenes showed a 0.6 mph dip in his average fastball velocity in his most recent outing against the Rockies, averaging 96.5 rather than 97.1. He did max out at 98.6 mph, though, and gained velocity as the innings went on. He hit 95 and 96 in the early innings and then hit 97 quite often in the third, proving he’s still capable of rearing back and adding a little more. 

And even if the velo isn’t what it’s been the last two years when Skenes won both the Rookie of the Year and Cy Young awards in the National League, he’s still getting desired results with the heater, limiting opposing hitters to a .176 average and generating whiff and putaway rates of 30.4% and 27.4%, respectively. All three of those figures are better than each of the last two seasons. 

“Velo doesn't do you any good if you don't have it when you need it,” said Skenes, who has a 2.86 ERA (14th in Major League Baseball), a 0.93 WHIP (fifth) and .199 batting average against (sixth) in 16 starts this season. “If you don't have it when you need it, then it's just sexy. You just throw hard, just to throw hard.” 

There are no physical ailments limiting Skenes, either. He said he’s been recovering very well and his body has felt better at this point in the season than it has either of the last two seasons. 

“I think also sometimes it just takes a little bit to get going,” he added. “I think I've gotten better as time's gone on. It's just being objective, feelings get in the way of winning. So you feel something, you get emotional, you start trying harder, you do stuff that you don't need to be doing, like when you're in-game and then over the course of the season, too. Just be objective and look at it for what it is. I'm very pleased with how the season's gone so far for me and like I said, I feel like I've gotten better. I feel like I'm better this year than last year, even if it might not show up on the stat sheet.” 

Speaking with him in Sacramento, Calif. last week, Don Kelly said that a lot can be made of velocity in today’s game. It’s not as if it doesn’t matter, but there have been plenty of hard-throwing pitchers who have dialed it back in an effort to ensure they’re available to their team every fifth day. 

Kelly remembers coming up through the Tigers system and playing behind Justin Verlander, a former Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award winner in his own right, in 2005 with Class AA Erie. That year, Verlander dominated through seven minor-league starts, using triple-digit fastballs to overpower hitters before eventually getting called up and never looking back. But he didn’t always rely on maximum velocity to put together a Hall of Fame worth resumé. In the words of Kelly, you “saw him evolve.” 

“Throughout that time from 2010-13, there were times that he would start off the game and he'd be 92 to 95,” Kelly said. “Then it would build up later, and he could go get it and still reach back. I think that it's something that is an evolution to where these guys learn how they can pitch deeper into games, and I don't know this with Paul, like I'm not saying that’s the exact case, and 100 is a lot more but 97, 98 is really difficult to hit.” 

Kelly confirmed that this approach with the velocity is by design, as Skenes places more of his focus on being a pitcher rather than just a thrower. Sure his efficiency hasn’t been what he’s wanted. He’s the type of guy who wants to be out there for seven-plus innings every outing. But it’s not as if he’s hanging his teammates out to dry. Skenes has pitched six-plus innings in half of his starts, including two instances in which he lasted eight innings. He had one four-inning start that was cut short by a lengthy weather delay and he’s dealt with heftier pitch counts in shorter five-inning outings due to opposing hitters drawing out at-bats and a lack of defensive support costing him pitches. 

“That's what he is, he's a pitcher who can go to different stuff. He goes to the splinker, he goes to the sweeper, to the change up, he can go to anything,” Kelly said. “And he still has the really elite velocity. Verlander is the only guy that I can think of in the past that I remember dialing it back, and sometimes intentionally to save some for when he needed it later in the game. I think he found a sweet spot. I think at one point he maybe dialed it back a little too much, and then had to ramp it up and get up to the 94, 95 range to sit, but he learned what he needed to do to be able to establish that routine through games, and then in recovery and prep and everything to be able to throw 200-plus innings.” 

Skenes threw 133 innings in 23 starts back in 2024 and was up to 187 2/3 innings, the 10th-most among all pitchers in Major League Baseball, last year. Now, Skenes isn’t quite in the top 25 in MLB, but he’s pitched the 16th-most innings (88) out of any pitcher in the National League, all while still managing to put up numbers that match up with some of the best in the game. 

“He’s on pace to, as we go, hopefully throughout the years, push 200-plus,” Kelly said. “And that's a lot more pitches that you're talking about throughout the course of the season. So, if we could have Paul Skenes throwing 98 and throwing 200-plus innings over Paul Skenes throwing 100 and throwing less, I'll take that first version of Paul Skenes any time on the mound.” 

PIRATES

• When speaking to Kelly and Spencer Horwitz on the subject over these last few weeks, one aspect of the ABS system that has caused confusion is the timing in which players have to challenge a pitch. There’s no device similar to the pitch clock being used. It’s arbitrary to the home-plate umpire, which has led to obstacles in this process. 

“There's no set time and I've seen guys tap it right away, at least I thought, and they've been denied the challenge,” Horwitz said during the team’s last homestand. “And then, I've seen guys look at the dugout, hear something, then challenge, and they're given that challenge. I think that's the hard part is there's no set time. So, what's the real rule?”

The Pirates have been involved in a few of these situations, including a game against the Twins on May 30 in which Brandon Lowe challenged a pitch and was denied by home-plate umpire Alex Tosi. When it comes to this particular topic, that’s the instance that immediately comes to Kelly’s mind. 

“Why I got so upset was that Alex agreed with me that it was immediate, and then he said that the dugout influenced it,” Kelly told me. “I said, ‘that contradicts itself, you can't tell me that it was immediate and there was time to be influenced by the dugout. The thing that happens is that from the side, you see the pitch, guys do respond, and the hitter has to wait until the umpire makes a call. So to me it should be, ‘did he hear the call and go right to his helmet,’ which I thought (Bryan) Reynolds did (June 16 vs. the Athletics).” -- By José Negron in Pittsburgh

• With Horwitz going on the injured list, Ryan O'Hearn will get more regular time over at first base in his absence. O'Hearn, who has made just nine starts at first this season, has no issues moving over to his primary position (2983 2/3 innings over 409 big-league appearances) during a year in which he's spent most of his time in right field. 

"I'm willing to do whatever they need," he told me. "I just gotta keep taking ground balls and taking the reps." -- José Negron

PENGUINS

• Just wanted to use this space to share some observations from the Hoffmann family's introductory press conference on Thursday. David Hoffmann, Penguins alternate governor and founder and chairman of the Hoffmann Family of Companies, stuck around and chatted with reporters after, just getting to know everyone. He indicated that he read and watched a lot of the content the various outlets put out and that he probably knows us better than we know him already. At the very least, it's nice to see that they cared enough leading up to this point to keep up with any local reporting at all on the team. -- By Taylor Haase in Pittsburgh

• The only members of the hockey operations staff on hand for the press conference were Kyle Dubas and Dan Muse, who watched and listened from the back of the room. Just about everyone from hockey ops is in town for the draft, but their draft headquarters isn't at the arena, so it wasn't feasible to have many more people stop over for the press conference. No players were there, though there are very few -- if any -- players still in town at this point. --Taylor Haase

• The Hoffmanns spoke about arena upgrades coming in the next year or so, but they're still working through specifics. I know that previous upgrades that were explored at the time Fenway put in the new videoboard included replacing the Vegas gold rows of seats, and adding the ability to do full-ice video projections like other teams around the league can do, but the videoboard was the priority. Maybe those are things that gets revisited now. -- Taylor Haase

• The potential Penguins-Everblades affiliation isn't a done deal. I heard on Thursday that if the Everblades don't become the Penguins' affiliate, they've also been in communication with the Sabres, who moved on from their previous affiliate in Jacksonville. -- By Taylor Haase

• It's been a busy week, and it's going to get even busier next week with free agency and development camp coinciding. It's a smaller development camp roster this year, with 22 players confirmed, and more to be added -- presumably all of their draft picks from this year, and more players from this year's draft-eligible class who end up going undrafted on Saturday. A few of their own already-drafted prospects won't be there, including defenseman Joona Vaisanen, who missed most of last season at Western Michigan with an injury suffered at the end of October. I asked around and it was a torn ACL he was dealing with. -- By Taylor Haase

STEELERS 

• The NFL's ruling to not hold a supplemental draft this summer was one of the stronger expectations from the Steelers' side of things. In the same conversations I had with sources last week in which I was told the Steelers had no intention of bidding on Brendan Sorsby, it was explained to me that all 32 teams were in a "holding pattern" on the whole situation with a realistic expectation that there might not even be a supplemental draft.

Just as the Steelers had major concerns over Sorsby's gambling issues, those proved to be true at the league level, as well. A small part of the Steelers' intel on Sorsby came from the league's investigation, which made this entire Saga essentially a non-factor at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex. -- By Chris Halicke in Pittsburgh

• One of the ways the Steelers do things differently off the field is the type of weight training done by the players. Under Mike McCarthy, he wants the players doing more Olympic weight training, which helps improve burst with your hips and legs and overall speed. I don't have specifics on what all the Steelers were doing previously, but I'm told this is a change under McCarthy. -- Chris Halicke

• For all the potential additions the Steelers could make, I've been told several times over the past few months that fan favorite Elandon Roberts is not being considered as an addition. Nothing is new on that front, either. The most likely guy to push for a roster spot is Jamin Davis, who just signed a one-year contract after trying out at mandatory minicamp. -- Chris Halicke

• Still no real update on extension talks with Joey Porter Jr. The team typically keeps these discussions under wraps, so I don't expect many updates until the deal is actually done. Even so, I still maintain the biggest hangup is the amount of guaranteed money. And be careful of other reports on this, especially those from outside of Pittsburgh. Both sides want to get this done -- and I expect it'll get done. -- Chris Halicke

• Also, there's still zero concern over Drew Allar still being the only drafted rookie that remains unsigned, per multiple sources on both the team's and player's side of things. -- Chris Halicke