Paul Skenes hadn't seen an opposing team produce anything but a goose egg in the run column during the first inning of each of his first six big-league starts. He's regularly dominated to open up games, allowing just one hit, a singular walk and registering 12 strikeouts when greeting hitters for the first time.
Skenes finally surrendered a first-inning run after allowing back-to-back hits against the Reds Monday night, but he quickly settled in, made necessary adjustments in terms of his pitch usage and executed with all five of those pitches to make his way through six strong innings in the Pirates' 4-1 victory at PNC Park.
"Kind of saw what their approach was pretty early in the game and adjusted," Skenes said. "Just adjusting our usages and how we were going to attack each hitter."
Skenes retired the first two hitters in the first before Jeimer Candelario and Spencer Steer took advantage of fastballs over the plate. Candelario sent a 99 mph fastball at the bottom of the zone into right field for a single and eventually swiped second base. Steer followed by belting a 100.5 mph heater off the wall in right-center field for an RBI double that gave the Reds an early 1-0 advantage.
"I think today kind of showed whether a team is sitting on a heater, they were on the heater -- because sitting on it and being on it are two different things," Skenes said. "They were on it early in the game so we just adjusted pretty quick and made do with what we had.”
While Skenes turned to his fastball 33 times, his 97-pitch total featured a solid mix of his other four pitches. He turned to his splinker 28 times, used his curveball more (18 times) for the second straight outing and mixed in a decent amount of changeups (10) and sliders (7) to keep hitters guessing.
“It’s literally just getting to a position where I have to use them, to an extent, to where I have to use all five of my pitches. That’s where I was today. There were a couple games like that last year, in pro ball and in college, too, where I had to do that. I don’t think it’s so much ... There are days when I can’t use a pitch. Today it was one of those days where I kind of had to use all five pitches to get through it," Skenes said. "It was kind of cool to execute my way through six innings, kind of out of necessity. I felt good today. I was happy with the execution of all the pitches. I don’t think it was so much not executing some pitches as it was they were just on some pitches and we just had to adjust.”
Skenes allowed one run on six hits and a walk while striking out seven en route to his fifth quality start in seven big-league outings. He struck out the side in the third and left Elly De La Cruz stranded after a one-out double. He retired eight batters in a row at one point and escaped a jam in the sixth when he allowed three separate baserunners on a pair of singles and his lone free pass.
"Primarily fastball, heavy fastball first inning and then went to the splinker and the curveball, made a really nice adjustment," Derek Shelton said. "There's not a lot of guys that can go back to the fastball at 100. I think the last pitch he threw was at 100. He and Yaz made a nice in-game adjustment and he was able to go back to one of his other weapons."
But it wasn't just Skenes' pitching that stood out. His impressive pickoff move and defensive ability were also on full display. He picked off De La Cruz, MLB's stolen base leader, for the first out of the sixth inning and fielded a short hopper in front of the mound to retire Tyler Stephenson for the final out of his night.
"It's got to be up there," Shelton said, referring to some of Skenes' best outings in front of the home crowd at PNC Park. "He threw the ball really well and controlled damage, so I would say yes, it probably is."
In the early going of his career as a major-league pitcher, Skenes has lived up the hype that has surrounded him since he was selected No. 1 overall in last year's draft. He's showed impressive composure in tough situations and has managed to effectively use every pitch in his arsenal.
The results have been there, too. Skenes is now 4-0 with a 2.29 ERA and a 0.99 WHIP, and has held opposing hitters to a .221 average at the big-league level. Through 39 1/3 innings, he's allowed 10 runs, walked seven batters and registered 53 strikeouts in helping guide one of the top starting rotations in Major League Baseball.
"I think he handles expectations extremely well. He’s handled it from the time he left Air Force and went to LSU, during the national championship run last year, being in the minor leagues this year with controlling how we were going to build him up, I think he has handled it extremely well," Shelton said. "I think it speaks to his maturity. You really don’t ever see him get rattled, which is a really good sign for a starting pitcher."
► MORE COVERAGE: Pirates' bats deliver early support
