Pittsburgh Review

PITTSBURGH -- The Paul Skenes show has lived up to its billing. His first taste of the Majors has been one of the greatest ever for a Pirates rookie, one that should get him Rookie of the Year consideration.

Thursday at PNC Park was another chapter in that Rookie of the Year campaign, as Skenes tossed six innings of two-hit ball with nine strikeouts in the Pirates' 7-0 win over the Reds. No Reds runner would advance past first base against Skenes, and a six-run fifth inning -- highlighted by a bases-clearing double by Bryan De La Cruz in his first three-hit game as a Pirate -- was more than enough insurance for the pitcher who leads baseball in ERA since his May 11 debut (2.16).

For anyone who was concerned with his human-like velocities the last few times out, he averaged 98.6 mph on his heater on Thursday, even hitting triple digits for the first time since July 23.

"Execution when I needed it was pretty good,” Skenes said. “Got behind in some counts, but executed when I needed to. Don't think it was notably better or worse than the last couple weeks. The results were just better."

The results in his rookie year have been terrific, but this was never billed as just a one-season engagement for Skenes. Given the Pirates’ low playoff odds, the question becomes how they should handle their pitching phenom down the stretch.

With his 131 1/3 combined innings this season (104 in the Majors, 27 1/3 with Triple-A Indianapolis), he has already thrown more competitive innings than he ever has in a season. So how far do the Pirates push him?

For now, they’re going to let him keep pitching.

"There is no immediate plan to shut him down,” said manager Derek Shelton pregame. “There have never been any immediate plans to shut him down. How we monitor that, whether it’s an innings limit or a workload limit per game, we’ll be thoughtful about that."

That thoughtfulness is in the form of some concessions that have not been compromised this year. The last box the Pirates wanted Skenes to check before coming up to the Majors was for him to pitch on regular four days' rest. While that’s certainly in the cards in 2025 and beyond, Skenes has pitched on five or six days' worth of rest before every start, a transitionary step between pitching once a week in college versus what the professional game can demand. He’s going to continue to get at least that extra day for rest this year.

Thursday seemed to be an example of what the future might hold for Skenes. He was terrific but was pulled after 87 pitches, his fewest since his Major League debut. There was little need to push him that extra inning with a touchdown lead and middle relief mostly rested; it could be a preview of Skenes’ September starts.

So why go through these extra steps rather than just shut him down? Because Skenes has never pitched a full professional season. The College World Series is held in June; thus, he has never pitched this deep into a year before. To build him up for future seasons, he’s going to pitch through at least most of this season.

"The calendar's huge,” Shelton said. “You have to learn how to get through a Major League season. It's really important and most guys are able to do it... What he's doing is something that's very different; it's very special... He's learning how to pitch on Aug. 22... He's gonna learn how to pitch in September..."

Skenes saw the alternative last year: needing to shut down after pitching in the College World Series and then build back up for Minor League play later on.

His workload has been monitored since Spring Training began for Pittsburgh in Bradenton, Fla., and nothing has changed as ensuring he’s prepared for future years remains paramount.

"That's one of the big things of this season: just getting used to how long it is," Skenes said." It's super important... so it's not a shock... If we're making [the] season longer incrementally... that's worse than making [it] longer one time."

"As frustrating as it was at [the] beginning... starting in Triple-A and [with] an innings limit there... I don't think we could have done it any better."

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