The Pittsburgh Pirates lost to the Baltimore Orioles by a final score of 2-1 on Wednesday. Nevertheless, Paul Skenes pitched well once again. The right-handed hurler struck out eight Orioles over five scoreless innings while allowing no walks. Skenes is in the middle of a tremendous season to say the least.
Former MLB player Xavier Scruggs addressed Skenes' performance following Wednesday's game, via MLB Network Radio.
“Just the dominance that we've seen with Paul Skenes, reaching now 200 strikeouts,” Scruggs said. “Only eight Pirates players in history, starters, have reached 200 strikeouts. I think to see that in his second full season just reminds us of the dominance, but also the understanding of what he's doing from a pitching standpoint. The sequencing, the tunneling of his stuff, the adding of pitches, the ability to command the strike zone with such high velocity.”
Paul Skenes has established himself as a true National League Cy Young candidate. The 23-year-old has pitched to a league leading 1.92 ERA across 30 starts. Skenes also leads the league with 203 strikeouts.
After winning the Rookie of the Year and finishing third in NL Cy Young voting a season ago, Skenes seems like a legitimate candidate to win the Cy Young this year.
“I know we talk a lot about his ability, but I think a lot of it, too, is the mental capacity in which… We walked to him early on in spring training about wanting to get incrementally better each start,” Scruggs continued. “I know he didn't go deep in this one, they're trying to hold him back a little bit, save some of those bullets. But what we've seen from him this season is another example of what the Pirates have to look forward to with arguably the best arm in all of Major League Baseball.”
The Pirates are out of postseason contention. Pittsburgh is hoping to build a contending roster around Paul Skenes sooner rather than later. At the moment, the Pirates will try to play the role of spoiler against contending ball clubs.
