Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates took on the Chicago Cubs for the second time in seven days. As good as he was in his first career start, today he took it to another level at Wrigley Field. The Pittsburgh Pirates have been getting great pitching from Jared Jones this season so far helping the Pirates to a 20-25 record heading into play today. The Pirates currently are seven games behind the division-leading Milwaukee Brewers and five games behind the second-place Chicago Cubs in the National Central Division. Paul Skenes is ITD’s number two overall prospect entering the year and has proven why with his first two starts for sure.
MLB DEBUT
On May 11th Skenes got his first Major League start of his career at home against the Chicago Cubs. He started the game off by getting Mike Tauchman to foul-tipped a ball into the catcher’s mitt for his first Strikeout of the big league Career and followed it up by striking out Seiya Suzuki finishing with two strikeouts in the first inning. He only worked four innings in his first start for the Pirates. He didn’t factor in the decision but allowed six hits, three earned runs, one home run, two walks, and seven strikeouts in his four innings of work. He finished the day with a 6.75 ERA and a 2.00 WHIP.
By the Numbers
During his first start he leaned on three pitches, his four-seam fastball 39.3%, slider 27.4%, and his split-finger 25% of the time. His four-seam fastball reached 100.1 MPH during his outing while his slider average was 85 mph with the split-finger at 94.7 mph. I can tell you for those who have yet to see any footage of the start that his split-finger coming in at that speed and with the run it has diving down out of sight at the last minute is a dangerous combo when you have a guy that brings it at 100mph regularly. His split-finger had 31.4 inches of drop vertically and 13.8 inches of break horizontally during the start. Again I am not sure how with a guy throwing that hard you attack a guy like this. He started the at-bat with Seiya Suzuki with the split finger on the inside corner, then threw a slider that started out of the zone aimed at his front leg broke into the zone at 85 MPH, and finished him off with a 100 mph four-seam fastball on the outside corner. The mindset and approach of this young pitcher is something that makes him even more dangerous. He has such confidence in his pitches that he will throw them at any time. He also has a changeup of 6% and a curveball of 2.4% that he used during his first start.
Second Career Start
Today Skenes came out of the gate red hot and in control at Wrigley Field. He Struck out the side in the first inning and followed that up setting down the side in the second inning by the way of the K as well. Today Skenes threw a total of 100 pitches, 67 of which were strikes. In six dominant innings of hitless work. He allowed one walk while striking out 11 Cubs hitters this afternoon. He lowered his ERA from 6.75 down to a 2.70 ERA on the year after two starts. The Pirates have two young aces on their staff right now Jared Jones and Paul Skenes. Skenes left today’s game at the end of Six innings with an 8-0 lead.
Wrap Up:
The Pirates offense in the last two games against the Cubs has come alive providing plenty of run support five runs last night in the win over the Cubs and currently have put up nine runs on the Cubs today. After today the Pirates will be four games behind the Cubs for second place in the Division with two more games on Saturday and Sunday to continue to pick up ground. The team is doing so without Ke’Bryan Hayes as a part of the lineup as well. They should be a fun team to watch the rest of the way for sure. If they can get Jack Suwinski to start to hit the ball along with Rowdy Tellz this team could be a surprise playoff team with the starting pitching staff they have put together. One thing is for sure I won’t be missing a start the rest of the season for Paul Skenes this kid is super talented and will be a must-watch the rest of the way for me.
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