PITTSBURGH — Paul Skenes wants the ball. All the time.
Yet the only pitcher in major league history to start the All-Star Game in each of his first two seasons also understands the Pittsburgh Pirates are intent on playing the long game with his electric right arm.
They did a year ago, when they put Skenes on a soft innings cap during his remarkable rookie season. They’re doing it again this summer. To a point, anyway.
So when Skenes walked into the dugout on Monday night after needing 86 pitches to get through six innings against the Detroit Tigers, the 23-year-old didn’t put up a fight when manager Don Kelly turned to reliever Braxton Ashcraft for the seventh in what eventually became a 3-0 victory.
“I haven’t had a real start in 10 days,” Skenes said after lowering his ERA to 1.91, the best in the majors. “So it’s a little bit of a ramp back up. I think that it was about as good as it could have been … a pretty good starting point.”
Sure looked like it. Skenes struck out six while allowing three hits to pick up his first victory since late May. The dry spell had nothing to do with his pitching — Skenes had a 1.77 ERA in his last eight starts entering Monday. Instead, it can be blamed on an offense that has scored the fewest runs in the majors.
Skenes has taken the high road amid his team’s struggles, to the point that Kelly needs to remind himself that Skenes just turned 23 less than two months ago.
“He’s wise beyond his years,” Kelly said. “The maturity level he shows when he’s out there, really, I don’t remember seeing anybody in my time [who’s had that].”
The Pirates are relying on it as they try to help him navigate his first full season in the big leagues. He bought in — begrudgingly at first — to the plan to monitor his workload as a rookie. This year, he wanted to take the ball and let it rip.
And while he has — Skenes has thrown 127 innings this season, nearly matching the 133 he tossed after being called up last May — Pittsburgh is trying to find the safest, healthiest path to help him make to late September.
“I don’t think anybody has the perfect answer,” Kelly said. “Just trying to make sure that we’re taking everything into account and collaborating with people that know more than even I do about all of this stuff and taking everybody’s thoughts into consideration and finding what we feel is the best way to go.”
Skenes is a part of that process, and he’s amenable, within reason. He hasn’t thrown more than 88 pitches in any of his four starts this month, even though he’s allowed all of two runs in the process.
“There’s still going to be starts where it’s like, ‘Hey, go out there and pitch,'” Skenes said. “I think we’re just going to pick our times with that. So I don’t know. There’s a long way to go still. So just going to keep pitching until they take the ball out of my hands.”
Kelly is hopeful Skenes can flirt with reaching 200 innings, a goal that seems doable if he can make another dozen starts like his first 21 this season. Skenes is a Cy Young Award contender despite playing for a last-place team that will likely be active at the trade deadline.
Pittsburgh’s victory on Monday night was its second in its last 13 games. The energy that characterized Kelly’s first 50 games on the job after replacing Derek Shelton in May has faded in the summer heat.
All around Skenes on Monday there were signs of a club already looking to the future — again. A handful of the team’s picks in last week’s draft stood on the field at PNC Park after signing contracts. Johan Oviedo, who hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2023 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, is hopeful to be back this season, though a return to the rotation might have to wait until 2026.
The team’s misfortunes, however, have not affected Skenes’ mindset or his performance. He can only control what he can control. Things haven’t gone according to plan – not by a long shot – for the Pirates. All the face of the franchise can do is take the ball every handful of days and do his part.
If that means he won’t get to throw until he thinks he’s done some nights, so be it. He’s willing to go along with whatever the plan is, with one notable exception.
“Not skipping a start,” he said. “That’s a no-go. That’s not good. … That’s not ideal. We’ve done a good job to this point, just working within our own parameters.”
