Paul Skenes is the talk of Major League Baseball.
On the heels of being the first player in major league history to be drafted and then be selected to the All Star Game the very next year, he put together another dominant game that saw him earn his sixth win of the season, strike out 11 (matching his career high) and lower his ERA to 1.90 on the season.
Perhaps this stat is the best of all, though:
His statement game in Milwaukee to help take down the Brewers has taken the baseball world by storm, but closer to home, a very different conversation is taking place.
There’s a large amount of frustration with the way the Pirates, and in particular manager Derek Shelton, had handled Skenes today.
The only two runners to reach base against Skenes were via and a walk and a hit batter (happening back to back in the second inning). He had a no-hitter through 7.0 innings, but Shelton opted not to go with him in the eighth inning, taking him out and relying on the bullpen to get the final six outs of the game.
That decision wasn’t appreciated by fans even at the time, and only looked worse as the Pirates’ no-hitter was immediately snapped when Colin Holderman entered the game.
Holderman would get into a bases loaded jam, but did record three strikeouts in the inning, including getting Milwaukee’s William Contreras to uncomfortably swing twice to get the final out.
Aroldis Chapman then came on for a clean bottom of the ninth, securing a 1-0 win for the Pirates, who claimed the series.
Now, the decision to pull Skenes is being criticized by Pirates fans, even after the team won.
In his postgame media availability, Shelton said that he believed that Skenes was getting tired
“He was tired. It really didn’t have anything to do with the pitch count…it was about where he was at, it was about trusting your eyes,” he said.
Shelton added that, in his eyes, he felt that Skenes was getting tired even after the sixth inning, and that he saw the tiredness start to creep into his body language and stuff.
I’m not sure I agree with him on Skenes looking tired, but on the general decision to take him out of the game, Shelton was right.
Skenes would have maybe gone out to start the eighth inning, but with his count and how much that arm had already been worked, there was just simply no way he was going to finish the game.
I know that Shelton said that Skenes’ pitching count was not the specific reason he pulled him, but if it wasn’t by that point, it would have been soon.
Skenes was at 99 pitches at the time he was taken out. Even if his eighth and ninth innings had gone just as efficiently as his seventh inning went, he would have been on pace for around 120 pitches by the time the game was over.
There’s no manager in Major League Baseball that is letting their 22-year old franchise ace throw that many pitches in a game, regardless of the game still being a no-hitter or not. It’s just the way that the sport operates now, not a solely Pittsburgh-related issue.
And if he isn’t going to make it the full nine innings, what’s the point in pushing him further and further?
From a fan perspective, it’s tragic, because we want to see history be made and we want to see the legendary rookie season that Paul Skenes is having to continue to reach milestone after milestone.
A no-hitter for Skenes would have been electric, but it simply wasn’t worth the risk.
The Pirates needed to look at the bigger picture with Skenes here. Although skeptical fans still believe Skenes will be shut down if/when the Pirates are too far out of the wild card race, the team still has big things planned for him down the road.
The Pirates need Skenes available for as long as possible. They simply cannot afford to risk that all for a Thursday afternoon in July.
The last thing anyone in this town wants is for the Pirates to somehow still playing meaningful ball in September, only to have Skenes have been overworked and forced to be limited, if not entirely shut down by that time.
Not to mention, the Pirates still won the game. Skenes’ efforts were nearly wasted by an anemic offense by the Pirates, but a very rare RBI by Yasmani Grandal ended up being the difference maker.
Holderman might have given us all heart attacks, but nobody scored on his watch. Much the same for Chapman, who recovered from blowing Sunday’s game and pitched a very quick ninth to secure the dub.
Had the Pirates’ bullpen blown the game, this might be a very different conversation. But the choice paid off, and the Pirates still won the game.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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