ATLANTA -- Paul Skenes was having a fun -- and fair -- laugh at my expense.
And in all honesty, I'm not sure I'd ever admired him more.
This was minutes after the Pirates were cut down again by the Braves, this time by a 2-1 count in 10 innings Saturday evening at Truist Park. The kid wasn't at his absolute best, as he'd concede, but he'd been plenty good enough over six innings in searing Georgia heat, charged with nothing more than a leadoff home run -- curiously, a second consecutive game for precisely that scenario -- while striking out nine and slipping out of several jams.
Press play for the proof:
Paul Skenes racks up 9 strikeouts for the @Pirates and has posted a quality start in seven of his first nine big league outings.
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 29, 2024
Last year's No. 1 overall pick to begin his MLB career:
2.06 ERA
12 K/9
1.03 WHIP pic.twitter.com/kPbYG6Zeas
Pretty bleeping great, huh?
And yet, the velocity wasn't all there, and the spin wasn't all there, as all the downward arrows below will attest ...
BASEBALL SAVANT
... and even the customary command strayed on occasion.
Big whoop. It happens. And if anything, I tend to be more impressed, as was the case with Jared Jones a month ago, when a talented young pitcher overcomes adversity as opposed to simply being awesome all the time.
So, in speaking with Skenes at his stall afterward, I'd asked mostly about any factors that might've influenced that adversity and ... oh, just watch:
That.
That's what I'm talking about.
“Execution just wasn’t there," he'd begin. "I had to grind through it.”
And grind he did. Which is why I brought up the feels-like 96-degree temp. His repeated reaches for the resin bag. The request he made at mid-game to address the mound. And when I cut off my own question by amending that I wasn't trying to make "excuses" for him ... he knew I didn't mean "excuses" for a poor performance, as I'd affirm with him later. But it's hard word to hear in any context that isn't negative, and he reacted.
“Excuses? I mean, it was a good outing," he'd respond with a smile even as I was clarifying back that I didn't mean it that way. "Yeah, you always have to battle heat and humidity. Execution wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I had to battle a little bit.”
That's how he should feel about what he's doing. And he should feel that way independent of anything related to the overall output of these Pirates, now 39-43 after losing the first two games here, or anyone sleeping through all this back at 115 Federal. Because no matter how his teammates fare, now matter how his team stacks up in the standings and, yeah, again, no matter how little Ben Cherington, Travis Williams or Bob Nutting do to bolster this roster that still needs bats in the worst way ... he's a shining, screaming light through it all.
And what's more, he's showing the maturity of ... oh, I can't say that name. Not yet.
But when I see him bounce back from Jarred Kelenic's opening salvo ...
Jarred Kelenic handles the heat 🔥 pic.twitter.com/8wkFGKyZN9
— MLB (@MLB) June 29, 2024
... and an ensuing Ozzie Albies single with a 5-4-3 double play and a high-heat whiff of Matt Olson, all without seeming to sweat ... man, that's special. Same goes for loading the bases after one out in the third, including back-to-back walks of Kelenic and Albies, then getting a 6-4-3. And in the fourth, when the Braves put two more aboard after one out, only to be deflated by a strikeout and popup. And then, as if to remind everyone what he's been like every other time out, he'd fan his final four batters.
Nine total strikeouts.
For 70 strikeouts through his first nine starts, making him the first in Major League Baseball history to pull that off while also allowing fewer than a dozen runs, to go with a 2.06 ERA, a 1.03 WHIP, a .228 opponents' batting average and -- get this -- he's yet to leave a game in which the Pirates weren't either leading or tied.
I'm pinching myself every time he's out there. It's surreal.
“Yeah, it looked like the first couple of innings he was kind of spinning off the ball, didn’t have his best stuff," Derek Shelton would assess. "And still, to not have his best stuff and give up one run to that lineup, a lineup that's All-Star studded, that tells you how good his stuff is. Then he made an adjustment mid-game, and I think we saw the last three innings the guy we’ve seen over four or five starts. I think it’s a big learning moment. ... I mean, they worked him hard. He had deep counts. He had a couple of ground balls that we made a couple of nice plays on. But overall, the fact that he adjusted in game I thought was really impressive.”
And what, Skenes was asked in being told of Shelton's remark, was that adjustment?
"I don't know."
He could've concocted something, if only to make his manager sound smart in the moment, but he shrugged and let out another laugh.
This is a rookie. And rookies don't commonly do that.
-2-original.jpg)
GETTY
They also don't commonly call upon a grounds crew, much less in a road venue, to correct some ruts that'd apparently been carved on the opposite side of the mound by his lefty counterpart, Max Fried. Eschewing his warmups before the fifth inning to watch the crew from the grass behind the mound, it couldn't have been clearer that the crew's new supervisor would've waited however long it took to get it right.
“They were just fixing it because I asked for it," he'd explain with another shrug. "The holes were getting a little bit big.”
GETTY
Rookies also don't commonly navigate a mound visit from a veteran catcher as if they'd rather be set ablaze than to have that continue one millisecond more than necessary, as appeared to be the case when Yasmani Grandal made that move in the third.
Nor do rookies outwardly enjoy when stuff goes their way, the way we've seen from Skenes mostly in the past couple weeks, this one after Jared Triolo started the aforementioned 6-4-3:
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) June 29, 2024
Nor do rookies go out of their way in a clubhouse setting to seek out a struggling teammate, as I noticed again here this weekend, and offer a word of encouragement.
Nor do they stop me after I think our conversation's done to say something kind about Ke'Bryan Hayes' defense.
Nor do they draw the strongest possible praise from the opposing manager.
"I'm nothing but impressed with the Skenes kid," Brian Snitker would tell reporters on the Atlanta side. "He's got a lot of confidence. He doesn't look like a first-year guy to me."
My friends, Skenes is a star in every sense, blessed not only with an extraordinary skill level but also the motivation to match. And, as Snitker suggested, he's full of faith in himself. And poised. And mature, so many miles beyond his 22 years.
And yeah, he reminds me of only one other athlete I've covered in a lifetime around our city's sports teams. Whose name I still won't say, if only because ... eh, doesn't feel right. Not yet.
Maybe after his 87th strikeout.
• Tons more on the Pirates Feed. And I mean tons, including Bryan Reynolds' hitting streak, Aroldis Chapman's major milestone, Edward Olivares' miserable slide in the 10th, and more.
• Thanks for reading my baseball coverage. One more game here Sunday morning -- and I do mean morning, with an 11:35 a.m. first pitch -- then flying home by nightfall.
