If he'd been perfect, he wouldn't have conceded that one run on two cheesy singles and an even cheesier chopper for an RBI fielder's choice that came close to being a double play ...
... and the Pirates wouldn't have lost, 1-0, to the Phillies today at Citizens Bank Park.
Nah, they'd have lost by a score of zero to negative-1 or something.
But hey ...
"It goes back to control what you can control," Skenes would say later on the subject of his offensive support, which has been a paltry 3.1 runs per start. "Obviously, not everything is within my power, and not everything is within the power of any other individual in here. That's how we're gonna get going a little bit, just controlling what we can control on an individual level. That's been my focus, and that's always been my focus. It's probably been a little bit more difficult this last month or so, but there's nowhere else to go but keep going. Just gotta keep going."
He certainly did that, finishing with eight excellent innings for the first official complete game of his Major League Baseball career -- though he'd joke it should get an asterisk until he can go nine -- and a line of the one run, three singles, a walk, nine strikeouts, 102 pitches, 71 strikes, a career-high 22 swings and misses, and a general command of his entire arsenal that might make the most powerful impact when appreciated as a painting:
BASEBALL SAVANT
I know, right?
There's more on that menu than at McDonald's.
Get this: Of those 102 pitches, the Phillies swung at 55, and 22 of those -- or a mindblowing 40 percent -- were whiffs, and another 15 were fouled off. And of those 22 whiffs, seven were on a standard fastball, six with an extraordinarily effective changeup, four with the sweeper, three with the patented splinker, and one each with the slider and curveball.
"Did a good job adjusting, I think, as the game went on," Skenes would say. "Kept them off balance and just a better job of executing today overall. Out in the bullpen, it wasn't anything impressive when I got out there. I was just getting ahead of guys. You can't just start coasting a little bit with it. You have to keep the pressure on early in the count, and I think I did a better job today than I have, probably in most of my starts this year."
His best of 2025. He was dominant. Outright dominant. And beyond deserving of a better fate than to leave that field amid a losing cause for these 15-32 Pirates. He's now allowed 17 earned runs in his 10 starts this season, good for a 2.44 ERA, and the team's lost seven of those 10 games.
“He pitched unbelievably well and deserved to win that,” Don Kelly would say. "Just the way he went about it, the stuff he had. It looked like he had a little bit more on the fastball there today, the offspeed was working and he got early soft contact. There really wasn't even hard contact today."
Nope. Three balls were barreled up off Philadelphia bats. Maybe one other, depending on how one might define it.
"Yeah, it seemed like his fastball attack, from the first inning, he just reared back and fired that fastball," Kelly continued. "And he really got everything in the zone, too."
Yep. Leaped out at me right away with this early K:
That's four blazers, BS-free, for none other than Bryce Harper, who's capable of crushing those all the way to Center City: 98.9, 98.8, 99.2 and a 99.7 for the grand finale.
I asked Skenes if maybe he'd brought an edge there.
"No, not really," he replied. "It might've looked like that."
Oh, it did.
"It's real, man,” Harper would say down the hall to Philadelphia reporters. “He's got good stuff. It's plus-plus. And, obviously, he is where he is because he's a really good guy and a really good pitcher. It's fun to watch.”
Just not at the end. Take it from the catcher.
"It's been devastating, honestly," Henry Davis would tell me of the Pirates' failure to support Skenes. "You feel that way with any pitcher really, but that level of excellence and opportunity we've had to win in his starts ... that's been tough to swallow."
THE ASYLUM
DK: No 'asterisk' needed for Skenes' brilliance
Paul Skenes wasn't perfect here.
If he'd been perfect, he wouldn't have conceded that one run on two cheesy singles and an even cheesier chopper for an RBI fielder's choice that came close to being a double play ...
... and the Pirates wouldn't have lost, 1-0, to the Phillies today at Citizens Bank Park.
Nah, they'd have lost by a score of zero to negative-1 or something.
But hey ...
"It goes back to control what you can control," Skenes would say later on the subject of his offensive support, which has been a paltry 3.1 runs per start. "Obviously, not everything is within my power, and not everything is within the power of any other individual in here. That's how we're gonna get going a little bit, just controlling what we can control on an individual level. That's been my focus, and that's always been my focus. It's probably been a little bit more difficult this last month or so, but there's nowhere else to go but keep going. Just gotta keep going."
He certainly did that, finishing with eight excellent innings for the first official complete game of his Major League Baseball career -- though he'd joke it should get an asterisk until he can go nine -- and a line of the one run, three singles, a walk, nine strikeouts, 102 pitches, 71 strikes, a career-high 22 swings and misses, and a general command of his entire arsenal that might make the most powerful impact when appreciated as a painting:
BASEBALL SAVANT
I know, right?
There's more on that menu than at McDonald's.
Get this: Of those 102 pitches, the Phillies swung at 55, and 22 of those -- or a mindblowing 40 percent -- were whiffs, and another 15 were fouled off. And of those 22 whiffs, seven were on a standard fastball, six with an extraordinarily effective changeup, four with the sweeper, three with the patented splinker, and one each with the slider and curveball.
"Did a good job adjusting, I think, as the game went on," Skenes would say. "Kept them off balance and just a better job of executing today overall. Out in the bullpen, it wasn't anything impressive when I got out there. I was just getting ahead of guys. You can't just start coasting a little bit with it. You have to keep the pressure on early in the count, and I think I did a better job today than I have, probably in most of my starts this year."
His best of 2025. He was dominant. Outright dominant. And beyond deserving of a better fate than to leave that field amid a losing cause for these 15-32 Pirates. He's now allowed 17 earned runs in his 10 starts this season, good for a 2.44 ERA, and the team's lost seven of those 10 games.
“He pitched unbelievably well and deserved to win that,” Don Kelly would say. "Just the way he went about it, the stuff he had. It looked like he had a little bit more on the fastball there today, the offspeed was working and he got early soft contact. There really wasn't even hard contact today."
Nope. Three balls were barreled up off Philadelphia bats. Maybe one other, depending on how one might define it.
"Yeah, it seemed like his fastball attack, from the first inning, he just reared back and fired that fastball," Kelly continued. "And he really got everything in the zone, too."
Yep. Leaped out at me right away with this early K:
That's four blazers, BS-free, for none other than Bryce Harper, who's capable of crushing those all the way to Center City: 98.9, 98.8, 99.2 and a 99.7 for the grand finale.
I asked Skenes if maybe he'd brought an edge there.
"No, not really," he replied. "It might've looked like that."
Oh, it did.
"It's real, man,” Harper would say down the hall to Philadelphia reporters. “He's got good stuff. It's plus-plus. And, obviously, he is where he is because he's a really good guy and a really good pitcher. It's fun to watch.”
Just not at the end. Take it from the catcher.
"It's been devastating, honestly," Henry Davis would tell me of the Pirates' failure to support Skenes. "You feel that way with any pitcher really, but that level of excellence and opportunity we've had to win in his starts ... that's been tough to swallow."
Hm. Imagine.
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