Paul Skenes shows how MLB hopes shorter starts will equal long careers

On Jul 16, 2024

[ad_1]

Baseball, as a sport, needs Paul Skenes to pitch as much as possible. The Pittsburgh Pirates, as a franchise, need Paul Skenes’s right arm to stay intact as long as possible. Those two forces may compete for the remainder of the season and beyond, regardless of the milestones that could be afoot.

Skenes is 11 starts into his major league career. His 12th will come in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game in Arlington, Tex., an acknowledgment by National League Manager Torey Lovullo that the rookie right-hander is the sport’s greatest attraction at the moment. Whether he allows 10 hits or none, he’ll come out of the game after the first inning.

“We have 11, 12 pitchers to get through,” said Lovullo, whose day job is managing the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Here’s the push and pull that baseball is dealing with, on display at the Midsummer Classic but present for the Pirates — and every single club that is trying to develop and protect young pitchers: People want to see the best pitchers perform more. Their clubs are continuing to ask them to do less.

Skenes has been nothing but a phenomenon since the Pirates called him up in May. After he won the 2023 men’s College World Series with LSU — where he posted an ungodly 209-20 strikeout-walk ratio and allowed 0.75 walks and hits per inning pitched — the Pirates made him the first pick in the draft. His numbers over seven starts in Class AAA this spring — a 0.99 ERA and 0.91 WHIP — earned him his promotion. His performance since — going 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA, a 0.92 WHIP, 89 strikeouts and 13 walks in 66⅓ innings — made him an all-star.

He is a skyrocketing star in a sport that needs them. Lovullo had the sense to seize on that.

“I wanted to just make sure that the world got a chance to see him,” Lovullo told reporters Monday in Texas. “We’re going to be on the biggest stage [Tuesday], and I am here to support and promote Major League Baseball the best way I know how. … He is potentially a generational talent. I want to give him every opportunity to go out on this stage and show what he can do.”

With limits, of course. That’s because of the exhibition nature of the All-Star Game, true. But it also defines modern baseball.

Skenes’s most recent outing — Thursday in Milwaukee — earned him the start in MLB’s showcase event. Through the first seven innings, Skenes allowed just one walk and no hits to the Brewers. He struck out 11. For 99 pitches, he was dominant.

And Pirates Manager Derek Shelton took him out of the game.

“You want to finish the game,” Skenes told reporters Monday in Texas. “You want to be able to finish what you started. Not just in that inning but every game that you pitch.”

That’s the right mentality for a starting pitcher. It does not reflect the reality of modern baseball.

Apologies for flogging an expired equine, but the diminishing demands on starting pitchers are damaging the sport. This isn’t Shelton’s fault. It isn’t the Pirates’ fault. It’s the fault of what cold, hard facts say — that starting pitchers are less effective the third time they see a hitter than the first — and an absolute dread among front-office types that…