As things fall apart with the Pittsburgh Pirates, their pitching ace and one of the new faces of this franchise, Paul Skenes, has gotten dragged into some of the criticism surrounding this team.

The man who the Pirates took with the first overall pick in the summer of 2023 is now in his second major league season as he tries to drag a roster that is not properly equipped to be competitive back to the postseason for the first time in a decade.

Skenes is coming off a 2024 campaign that saw him make his major league debut on May 11th, and post a 1.96 ERA, 0.947 WHIP, and 170 strikeouts over 133 innings. That phenomenal transition from college to pro ball helped him be crowned the National League Rookie of the Year.

His arrival was supposed to signify a new era of Pirates baseball and the end of a lengthy, frustrating rebuild in Pittsburgh. However, now in his first full season as a major leaguer, he is on a team that finds themselves double digit games under .500 in early May and their season already on the line.

Admittedly, Skenes’ numbers have slipped slightly this year, but his numbers are still phenomenal. His 2.77 ERA ranks 20th in Major League Baseball, his 0.95 WHIP ranks 15th, and his .192 opposing batting average ranks 13th. He is still one of the best pitchers in baseball.

But here’s the thing with Paul Skenes.

Yes, he doesn’t look quite as sharp as he did last year. It was virtually impossible for him to keep a sub-2.00 ERA all season long. His command looks slightly off. His strikeout rates are down. And the velocity has been a tad off at times.

But if Skenes looks less than superhuman on the mound, it’s his own team’s fault. Here’s why.

The Pirates are one of the worst batting teams in the league. Coming into last night’s game in St. Louis against the Cardinals, the team as a whole was slashing .223/.306/.335 (.641 OPS). None of those categories rank higher than 23rd in all of baseball, and their on-base percentage is the only of those marks to not be bottom-five.

Simply put, the Pirates routinely find a way to turn every opposing pitcher they see into a Skenes-type pitcher, meaning someone who can completely shut down an attack.

Skenes, like all Pirate starters, have been put at an incredible disadvantage by their batting counterparts. Every Pirate starter has to play nearly (if not entirely) shutout ball for the team to even have a chance at winning. Here’s the starting pitching line for all 12 Pirate wins this season:

• March 28, Mitch Keller: 6 IP, 1 ER
• April 2, Paul Skenes: 7 IP, 0 ER (1 R)
• April 6, Andrew Heaney: 7 IP, 1 ER
• April 7, Carmen Mlodzinski: 5 IP, 1 ER
• April 9, Mitch Keller: 7.1 IP, 0 ER
• April 14, Paul Skenes: 6 IP, 1 ER (2 R)
• April 16, Bailey Falter: 7 IP, 0 ER
• April 17, Andrew Heaney: 7.1 IP, 0 ER
• April 22, Bailey Falter: 4 IP, 3 ER
• April 23, Andrew Heaney: 6 IP, 0 ER
• April 25, Paul Skenes: 6.1 IP, 0 ER
• April 30, Carmen Mlodzinski: 4 IP, 2 ER

For reference, the ERA of Pirate starters in games the team has won is 1.11. That’s an impossible figure for any rotation to keep up with or consistently get to. Pittsburgh’s rotation, as currently carries a 4.38 ERA, which ranks 23rd in MLB.

But Skenes is at a unique disadvantage with this roster construction. Skenes has been looked at as the savior for the Pirates from the day he was drafted. He’s been painted as a man who is immune to a struggling Pittsburgh team around him, someone who can pull this team out of any bad scenario.

Not only is that a nearly impossible position to put any pitcher in, even if he’s an ace, only the Pirates could find a way to break a guy like Skenes. With the way they are playing, they almost look determined to.

In the now eight games Skenes has started in 2025, he has been charged with four losses. That’s a remarkably unfair stat to him. Skenes has been “out-dueled” in a handful of his starts, but again, that is because his batters turn every opposing arm into Hall of Fame competition.

Skenes narrowly outdid Sandy Alcantra in the team’s opening day game in Miami. Both were charged with two earned runs, but Skenes was able to get an extra two outs. If Skenes giving up an extra hit makes that a draw in your book, fair enough.

He deftly outperformed Tampa Bay’s Ryan Pepiot in his second start of the year. Skenes went seven innings to Pepiot’s five and held the Rays scoreless, while Pepiot surrendered a pair.

Skenes’ first definitive loss came in his third start, where the St. Louis Cardinals (who seem to have his number), knocked him around for five earned runs in six innings. His opponent, Sonny Gray, went five frames and allowed one earned run. This was Skenes’ only true bad start of the year.

He came back and beat Washington’s Brad Lord, going six innings with one earned run to Lord’s 4.1 innings with four earned runs against.

After this, we start to get into more difficult territory. In three of Skenes’ last four starts, he has had a worse stat line than his opponent. But you would expect a team of major league players to help him out at least once.

Skenes went seven innings and held the Cleveland Guardians to two runs on April 19th, but the Pirates could only manage four hits off Ben Lively, who shut them out. Lively had an ERA just under five coming into that game and opponents were hitting .270 against him.

On May 1st, Skenes went five innings against the Chicago Cubs. He held the Cubs scoreless until the fifth, when he allowed three solo home runs. Still, he went a modest five innings with three earned runs. Yet, the Pirates could only muster four hits and two runs against Colin Rea. Now, Rea is off to a tremendous start, but he’s a career 4.41 ERA pitcher. He’s not unbeatable.

Last night, Skenes went six innings and only allowed two runs in the sixth. But he was screwed by his team once again, who only put up one run on Matthew Liberatore. The Cardinals’ arm was coming into the game with a 3.44 ERA; solid, but again, not unbeatable. He matched his career high of eight strikeouts against the Pirates.

In the last three games that Skenes has been “out-dueled,” Skenes has recorded an ERA of 3.50 and WHIP of 1.278, both below the league average. Meanwhile, in those same three games, the Pirates have gone 15-for-94 (a .160 average) with 18 strikeouts (a 19.1% rate).

Skenes has been charged with three losses, helplessly watching his team strikeout and ground into double plays — both categories in which the Pirates are one of the worst teams in baseball.

Yes, Skenes doesn’t look the absolute best right now. But I promise you that if his teammates could ever give him an ounce of run support, the guy who now has a rotation-best 2.77 ERA would not ever be a talking point in this town.

To start criticizing his game is nit-picking on a non-issue when the Pirates have so, so many bigger problems right now.

The only “thing” about Skenes right now, if we could even call it that, is that he’s a pitcher who gets no run support. He “loses” games because he is on a terrible team.

This franchise lucked into getting an ace like him in the draft and they are completely fumbling him. I feel awful for the guy.