Pittsburgh Pirates top prospect Paul Skenes made his MLB debut against the Chicago Cubs on May 11, going four innings while allowing three runs on six hits. He struck out seven batters while walking a pair. The Pirates won 10-9.
Statistically, it wasn't the best debut for the right-handed pitcher, but it was the beginning of what will hopefully be a fruitful MLB career for the man who was ranked as a top-10 prospect in baseball heading into 2024.
Skenes discussed his first outing during a recent appearance on The Pat McAfee Show and felt good about the whole situation.
“It was just cool, I mean surreal from the beginning,” Skenes said. “It was an awesome day.”
Skenes added that he tried to soak it all in as much as possible without getting distracted.
Pittsburgh is 19-23 heading into Tuesday's action.
Paul Skenes is joining an impressive Pirates rotation
The Pirates aren't very good. They haven't really been all that good for decades now. But there is hope.
Skenes is joining a Pittsburgh rotation that is actually fairly impressive. The Pirates have 28-year-old Mitch Keller and a couple of other elite prospects in Jared Jones and Quinn Priester already on the roster, all of whom have been good to great in 2024.
Jones and Priester were both also top-100 prospects, and Jones made his debut at the beginning of this season. Across eight starts, he has gone 2-4 with 2.68 ERA, allowing just 34 hits and seven walks while striking out 57 batters over 47 innings of work. He leads the league with a strikeout-to-walk ratio of 8 and boasts a 0.872 WHIP, so he has been terrific early on.
Priester, meanwhile, arrived in the bigs last year, but his start wasn't so pretty. He went 3-3 with a 7.74 ERA, surrendering 58 hits and 12 home runs while handing out 27 free passes across 50 frames of action. He also only fanned 36 hitters.
The 23-year-old has been a bit better this season, posting a 3.86 ERA through four starts, although he has only recorded a very small sample size of 21 innings.
Still, with Skenes, Jones and Priester, the Pirates have the makings of a very nice young rotation, and it's not like Keller is ancient.
Pittsburgh boasts a respectable 3.88 ERA as a team and has registered 19 quality starts. Those are some pretty nice numbers and bodes well for the future. That being said, you need more than pitching to win in baseball. You also need offense.
That's where the Pirates struggle.
Pittsburgh ranks 26th in batting average, 27th in OPS and 26th in runs scores this season, which explains why they are several games below .500. Luckily, they are playing in a very winnable division, as they sit just 5.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the NL Central.
Still, it's hard to imagine the Pirates making much of a run this year, and it's also important to note that they have gone just 10-21 since a 9-2 start. Pittsburgh has been playing some better ball lately, though, going 5-4 over its last nine games.
We'll see if Skenes can help spark the Pirates as the season progresses.
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