The 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers may feature the best lineup of all-time. Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes clearly doesn't care, though. On Friday night, Skenes turned in 6.1 innings of shutout baseball in Los Angeles while striking out nine Dodgers.

It looks like the Pirates have an old-fashioned workhorse ace in Skenes, who set a new career-high with 108 pitches on Friday night in his home state. Yet, Skenes would throw even more pitches if he could.

“I know this is never going to happen, but I really do feel like I'm built and conditioned to throw, 140, 150,” Skenes said, via Sarah Wexler of MLB.com. “I know that happens in college, doesn't happen in the big leagues anymore. So I'm not going to say no when they ask if I'm good to face another hitter or go back out there for another inning.”

Paul Skenes started the seventh and recorded an out before Pirates manager Derek Shelton turned to the bullpen. In an era where 100 pitches has become the magic number, Skenes is capable of going beyond that mark. The Pirates are still going to proceed with caution. Shelton is seemingly open to the 22-year-old pitching deeper into games when necessary, though.

Paul Skenes is becoming a true superstar

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Skenes is establishing himself as a superstar. It appears that Skenes is poised to make a legitimate Cy Young run. His popularity is continuing to increase as well.

See, many times when a small-market ball club such as the Pirates travel to Los Angeles to play the Dodgers, all of the attention is typically on the home team. The small-market team is often overlooked. However, the headline for Friday's game was Paul Skenes vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Yamamoto also pitched well on Friday, recording five innings on the mound while surrendering three runs. He was unable to match Skenes' performance, though, and the Pirates upset the Dodgers and their juggernaut roster.

Paul Skenes is becoming MLB's next true superstar pitcher.