It's a boundless buzz of baseball. 

That's basically the best way to absorb, to appreciate all the activity that's filling all five fields across the broad campus here at Pirate City. A drill on this one, a drill on that one, cracks here, catches there and coaches' voices booming everywhere. An hour or two of that every day until around noon.

Not this one.

The fourth field would feature Paul Skenes throwing what's called 'three-ups,' in which he'd face three batters, pause as if it's an inning break, then bounce back up for three more, then repeat. And in a modest setting like this, that's a marquee attraction and a half. It'd been known by all participants beforehand, and word had spread through the couple hundred fans on hand, as well. So as noon approached, the clatter of spikes on cement began to carry everyone toward that singular space.

To no one's surprise, Skenes was ... Skenes. Same power. Same pop of Henry Davis' mitt. Same awkward swings, batter after batter.

Marcell Ozuna would be the last. He wasn't having it.

First time up, he'd been badly fooled by a breaking pitch, one-handing a lunge to whiff.

This time, following what had to have been a wasted pitch off the plate, Ozuna piped up, looking out to the mound and saying loudly enough to be heard from my vantage point up the first base line, "You know I don't chase."

Then, "I'm a hitter."

Then, "Home runs."

A few of us laughed. Not Skenes. Not Davis. Definitely not Ozuna.

"You can't be scared," he'd tell me later in the clubhouse. "A lot of guys are like that when Paul's pitching. He's great. He's Cy Young. But he's not gonna strike me out. I see him. I want that. I want to go against him. It helps me."

I'll bet. It can also better the competition, though. And not many in this environment are more competitive than the other two in this scenario.

So Davis, Skenes' best bud and batterymate, threw down a single finger ... AND told Ozuna.

"Here comes the heat," Davis would recall for me, with a devilish grin, his message to the man in the box. "And it came."

Sure did, belt-high and tailed by figurative flames. To which Ozuna responded with his own forceful torque ... and a pop-out to foul territory in right, mustering up little more than a momentary gasp from observers that there'd been contact at all.

"That's OK," Ozuna would tell me. "He didn't strike me out. I'll get him next time."

The two mutually laughed once it was done, Skenes approaching Ozuna for an embrace.

I filmed this, and most of the dialogue's audible:

My point here, beyond what a fun scene this was: The Pirates as a collective were absolutely brutal at the plate in 2025. Worst in Major League Baseball in most categories by such a broad margin they might as well have been 31st out of 30. And beyond that, they'd be flat-out overmatched more often than not. A good lefty against some other team was a scary Sandy Koufax, Steve Carlton or Randy Johnson against them.

That script's got to at least begin to change. Even if it's just bluster.

Fact: Skenes still dominated here. His three innings saw six strikeouts, a walk and a tattooed Bryan Reynolds single to balance out Reynolds also being struck out.

Fact: Ozuna did and does strike out against Skenes. Once here and one other time while with the Braves, to go with twice bouncing into double plays across three career matchups.

Fact: Ozuna's got 13 years in the bigs with 296 home runs, 100 the past three seasons in Atlanta, 21 in 2025. He can, for sure, hit. Home runs.

Fact: Come March 26 in New York, he'll represent the one-third of Don Kelly's lineup that'll be new, along with Brandon Lowe, Ryan O'Hearn, plus possibly Jake Mangum and --- don't hold me to this, but worth mentioning -- Konnor Griffin.

Fact: Based on baseball history, the bop won't mean much without the attitude and approach to back it up. There's got to be, to an extent, a common confidence.

As Ozuna and I were speaking, as if to emphasize this, he'd whip his head around to make sure nearby teammates were hearing him. One of them was Joey Bart, two stalls away.

"That dude," as Bart would tell me, "that's the real deal."

GREG MACAFEE / DKPS

Paul Skenes between pitches at Pirate City.

• Skenes, team-oriented as ever, praised the hitters in the process because Ozuna, Reynolds and Oneil Cruz also took turns talking to him through pauses about what they were seeing from his pitches: “That stuff is so valuable because, after each inning, I’m coming back in and Marcell, Bryan and Cruzy are all saying, ‘Hey, this was good, this was bad,’ what they’re seeing, which obviously if you’re playing another team, they’re not going to do a debrief with you like that after a game. It gives you an opportunity to understand what they’re seeing, what they’re thinking and what’s working. Super valuable.”

• I'm gonna get myself in trouble with ... well, me, if I keep making Sidney Crosby comparisons, but Skenes' plain language on this day in discussing how he plans to add depth to his repertoire -- deeper into games, deeper into the season to be prepared for playoffs -- is so just so very Sid.

"Nobody pushes Paul harder than Paul pushes Paul," was how Kelly worded it here. "And how he prepares, how he continues to evolve. We talk about how Paul can get better? It's really hard to get better when you're at the top, you know? But he continues to do that. He continues to push himself in that way and find ways to prepare and recover so that he can be a workhorse on the mound and throw 200-plus innings."

“I don’t know how many innings you play in the postseason,” Skenes would say, “but the plan is to be built up and ramped up for that.”

Uh-huh. That again.

• Dennis Santana, closer, has an appealing ring to it, as I'd raise with the man himself in this one-on-one chat we had here:

Good stuff from him. Good dude.

Good pitcher, too: 0.87 WHIP, .189 opponents' batting average, 70 appearances in 2025.

But closer?

Well, yeah, he's gonna be that, but Don Kelly still didn't want to do anything with my question on that front yesterday, saying only, "Santana's gonna pitch in the ninth inning. And setting a closer, I think, is hard to do on February 19th or whatever. Santana's phenomenal. He's such a great teammate. He's a leader on this club. He pitched unbelievable last year, and he pitched in so many different innings. Now, is he gonna be in the fifth again? Probably not. Does that mean that we're not gonna see him in the eighth at times? No, because that might be the pocket that we need to get out to win the ballgame. To sit here and set a definitive closer, not gonna do that. But I know that we're gonna have multiple guys, including Santana, that are pitching meaningful innings at the back end of the game."

Yeah, no. He'll be the closer. Certainly at the outset. Not even Gregory Soto, the veteran lefty signed at a $7.5 million salary this winter, has enough pedigree in that role to unseat Santana.

But I get where Kelly's going and why: Especially under a management that lives and dies -- mostly dies -- with analytics, Kelly's bound to being open about utilizing relievers more toward game-level need than toward any singular statistic. And I don't necessarily disagree with that. Think about Isaac Mattson's fireman-style usage as an example. Get people out when they need to be gotten out.

At the same time, a big bunch of games still conclude with standard save scenarios, and not everyone can handle those, as we've all witnessed over the years. Santana's the guy.

• Yes, please, to Reynolds returning to left field. I've seen the O'Hearn outfield metrics. PNC Park's left is no place for the defensively challenged.

• Pitcher I enjoyed watching today: Justin Lawrence. A pronounced three-quarters delivery brings a heavy sinker that can hit high-90s, plus a signature sweeper. If healthy, and he can carry September form into this spring, he'll be a legit plus in that pen. 

• Hitter I enjoyed watching today: Brandon Lowe's got one of those natural, rolled-out-of-the-womb-with-it swings. Reminds me of Nate McLouth on that count alone. Some Brian Giles in there, as well. Easy to see how he runs into all the home runs.

Hope everyone's enjoying the unprecedented coverage we've offered from here, including José Negron's reporting and original observations each day, Greg Macafee's endless visuals and whatever I can whip up while here.

The sights-and-sounds videos, so far, have been a real point of pride. I shot this of Griffin banging baseballs off the rooftops:

• Thanks for reading my -- and our -- baseball coverage. I've flying home tonight to the good place.