Skenes is making his 11th career major league start. His 12th will come Tuesday night in the All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, an acknowledgement by National League manager Torey Lovullo that the rookie right-hander is the biggest draw in the game right now. Whether he gives up 10 hits or none, he’ll be out after the first inning.
“We’ve got 11, 12 pitchers to take out,” said Lovullo, whose day job is managing the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Here’s the tension baseball faces, as evidenced by the Midsummer Classic, but also by the Pirates and all the clubs trying to develop and protect young pitchers: People want their best pitchers to do more. Their clubs keep asking them to do less.
Skenes has been nothing short of a phenomenon since the Pirates called him up in May. After winning the 2023 College World Series with LSU — where he posted an incredible 209-20 strikeout-to-walk ratio and allowed 0.75 walks and hits per inning pitched — the Pirates made him the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. His stats over seven starts in Class AAA this spring — a 0.99 ERA and 0.91 WHIP — earned him the promotion. His performance since then — 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 89 strikeouts and 13 walks in 66⅓ innings — have made him an All-Star.
He is a rising star in a sport that needs one. Lovullo had the good sense to seize this opportunity.
“I just wanted to make sure 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’m here to support and promote Major League Baseball in the best way I know how. … He’s potentially a generational talent. I want to give him every opportunity to get on that stage and show what he can do.”
With limits, of course. It’s due to the exhibitionist nature of the All-Star Game, true. But it also defines modern baseball.
Skenes’ last outing, Thursday in Milwaukee, earned him a start in MLB’s marquee event. Through the first seven innings, Skenes allowed just one walk and no hits to the Brewers. He struck out 11 batters. On 99 pitches, he was dominant.
And Pirates manager Derek Shelton pulled him from 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 this inning, but in every game you pitch.”
That’s the right mindset for a starting pitcher. It doesn’t reflect the reality of modern baseball.
I apologize for flogging an old horse, but the lowering of the bar for starting pitchers is hurting the game. It’s not Shelton’s fault. It’s not the Pirates’ fault. It’s the fact that starting pitchers are less effective the third time they see a batter than the first, and an overwhelming fear among management types that their most promising young pitchers will almost inevitably break down.
By being a model employee, Skenes helps the Pirates out of a sticky situation.
“Obviously, I’m 22 and I think the whole story has been about managing my workload, managing my volume this year,” Skenes said. “And then, you know, honestly, Sheltie said I looked tired when he was talking to me in the dugout and he was looking at me.
“That’s kind of how I felt, too. I was struggling. I threw over 60 pitches in the first three innings. There’s going to be outings like that, and it’s kind of unfortunate that it happened in an outing like that.”
It’s happened twice before. In his second major league start, Skenes struck out 11 Chicago Cubs players and walked one in six hitless innings. Shelton benched him for the seventh.
It may be a good idea, but it may also be a bad idea. Perhaps such caution will prolong Skenes’ season or career. There is no denying that it deprives the sport of moments it needs.
There’s a lot of effort being put into protecting players who play a smaller and smaller role in the outcome of a game. The average starting pitcher over the first half of the season pitched 5.29 innings. Last year, he pitched 5.14. That’s 15 to 16 outs, leaving a group of relievers scrambling to make the final 11 or 12 outs. In the past, most of the work fell on the starting pitcher; as recently as 2011, the average start lasted more than six innings. The load has changed and will change again.
Besides, the cautionary tales are everywhere. The last pitcher to emerge as a rookie with Skenes’ level of attention was Stephen Strasburg, who struck out 41 and walked five in his first four starts with the Washington Nationals in 2010. In his 12th start, in August at Philadelphia, he jerked his right arm. He was pulled in the fifth inning. He underwent Tommy John surgery to replace the ligament in his elbow. He didn’t pitch in the major leagues until the following September.
The next year, the Nationals managed Strasburg’s innings so much that he was removed from the rotation just as Washington reached the playoffs. What was brazen then is more commonplace now. Skenes never pitched more than the 129 1/2 innings he completed between college and the minor leagues last year. He’s already at 93 1/2 innings this season. Baseball, as an industry, keeps an eye on those numbers. The Pirates, just a game and a half out of a National League wild-card spot, could face questions similar to Strasburg’s.
There is no foolproof method, though. Clubs continue to monitor pitchers. Pitchers continue to injure their elbows. Let’s hope Skenes is different. His first 11 starts have been.
“I hope I have plenty of time left to play this game,” Skenes said.
Fingers crossed. Breath held. What’s best for the sport is that Skenes is a special case, that he stays healthy, because he’s a ticket-selling, eye-catching attraction. What’s best for the Pirates is maybe that he gives up a single in the first or second inning every time. That way, when Shelton does what he feels compelled to do, he won’t rob Skenes — or the rest of us — of a moment that could have been.