Skenes has made 11 starts in his major league career. His 12th comes in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas, an acknowledgement by National League Manager Torey Lovullo that the rookie right-handed pitcher is the game’s biggest draw right now. Whether he allows 10 hits or none, he will leave the game after the first inning.
“We have to beat 11, 12 pitchers,” said Lovullo, who coaches the Arizona Diamondbacks in real life.
This is the push and pull that baseball faces, on display at the Midsummer Classic but present for the Pirates — and for every club trying to develop and protect young pitchers: People want the best pitchers to do more. Their clubs keep asking them to do less.
Skenes has been nothing short of a phenomenon since the Pirates drafted him in May. After winning 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 — the Pirates made him the first pick in the draft. His numbers in 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 and 0.92 WHIP, 89 strikeouts and 13 walks in 66⅓ innings — made him an All-Star.
He’s a skyrocketing star in a sport that needs them, and Lovullo had the brains to capitalize on that.
“I just wanted to make sure the world got a chance to see him,” Lovullo told reporters in Texas on Monday. “We’re going to be on the biggest stage [Tuesday]and I’m here to support and promote Major League Baseball the best way I know how. … He’s potentially a generational talent. I want to give him every opportunity to get on this stage and show what he can do.”
With limitations, of course. That’s because of the exhibitionist nature of the All-Star Game, yes. But it also defines modern baseball.
Skenes’ most recent outing — Thursday in Milwaukee — earned him the start in MLB’s showcase event. Through the first seven innings, Skenes allowed just one hit and no hits to the Brewers. He struck out 11. He was dominant, throwing 99 pitches.
And Pirates manager Derek Shelton pulled him from the game.
“You want to finish the game,” Skenes told reporters in Texas on Monday. “You want to be able to finish what you started. Not just in that inning, but in every game you pitch.”
That’s the right mentality for a starting pitcher. It doesn’t reflect the reality of modern baseball.
Apologies for whipping a dead horse, but the declining demands on starting pitchers are putting the sport in jeopardy. This isn’t Shelton’s fault. It isn’t the Pirates’ fault. It’s the fault of cold, hard facts — that starting pitchers are less effective the third time they face a batter than the first — and an absolute fear among front-office types that their most promising young pitchers will almost inevitably break through.
As a model employee, Skenes helps the Pirates get out of a difficult position.
“Obviously, I’m 22 years old and the whole story, I think, was about managing the 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 looked at me.
“That’s kind of how I felt. I was having a hard time. It was 60+ pitches in the first three innings. There’s going to be more outings like that, and [it] It’s a shame that it ended up on such an outing.”
It’s happened twice now. In Skenes’ second start in the big leagues, he struck out 11 and walked one in six hitless innings against the Chicago Cubs. Shelton sat him out in the seventh.
It may be smart. It also stinks. Perhaps such caution will prolong Skenes’ season or his career. It will undoubtedly rob the sport of moments it needs.
So much effort is put into protecting players who play less and less of a role in determining the outcome of a game. The average starting pitcher completed 5.29 innings in the first half of this season. Last year it was 5.14. That’s somewhere between 15 and 16 outs, leaving a group of gas-throwing relievers to make the final 11 or 12. The brunt of the burden once fell to the starter; in 2011, the average start was more than six innings. The burden has shifted, and it’s shifting.
Moreover, there are cautionary tales everywhere. The last rookie pitcher to arrive with Skenes’ 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 shook his right arm. It was removed in the fifth inning. He underwent Tommy John ligament replacement surgery on his elbow. He did not pitch in the majors again until the following September.
(In)famously, the Nationals managed Strasburg’s innings the following year — to the point where he was pulled from the rotation even as Washington reached the playoffs. What was outrageous then is commonplace now. Skenes has never thrown more than the 129⅓ innings he completed last year between college and the minors. He’s already at 93⅔ this season. Baseball, as an industry, keeps a close eye on those numbers. The Pirates, just a game and a half shy of an NL wild-card berth, could face Strasburg-like questions.
There is no foolproof method, though. Clubs keep watching pitchers. Pitchers keep twisting their elbows. Let’s hope Skenes is different. His first 11 starts are done.
“Hopefully I can play this game a lot more,” said Skenes.
Fingers crossed. Breath held. The best thing for the game is that Skenes is an outsider, that he stays healthy because he’s an attraction that sells tickets and draws viewers. The best thing for the Pirates may be that every time he’s out, he gives up a single in the first or second inning. That way, when Shelton does what he feels he has to do, he won’t rob Skenes — or the rest of us — of a moment that could have been.