Pittsburgh Pirates manager Derek Shelton is trying to temper expectations about his young ace Paul Skenes. Skenes walked four batters on Friday against the Seattle Mariners, even though the Pirates were able to win the game and snap a 10-game losing streak. Shelton wants Pirates fans to know that Skenes is just as human as anyone else.
“I think all of us get enamored with how good he is, and then he has a start like this where his delivery is not in sync, and he walks, and everybody thinks it’s Armageddon,” Shelton said, per MLB.com.
“He’s a major league pitcher that is dealing with things, and we saw a major league pitcher deal with something today and still give us a chance to win, which I give him credit for.”
Pittsburgh was able to muscle its way past Seattle, 5-3. The Bucs are now 57-64 on the season after breaking the painful losing slump.
Paul Skenes still pitched well for the Pirates on Friday
Skenes still had a solid outing on Friday. The young hurler tossed six innings and struck out six batters. He gave up only three hits in his appearance, which helped Pittsburgh tremendously in the victory.
The All-Star pitcher has a 7-2 record on the season with an ERA of 2.30. He's also recorded 121 strikeouts for a Pirates team that has immediately rallied around him as their staff ace. Skenes is the former No. 1 overall MLB Draft pick in the 2023 draft after playing at LSU baseball.
Skenes has used his fastball this season to great effect for the Pirates. The pitcher says he wasn't able to get that pitch going well enough against the Mariners on Friday, which contributed to the walks.
“Everything else kind of plays off that,” Skenes said, per MLB.com. “It wasn’t like I had no idea where it was going. I was just missing. I don’t know if it looks that way, but I knew I was close. Basically just had to keep throwing it to get it back.”
The Bucs imploded in August, losing 10 games in a row after the MLB Trade Deadline. A once-promising season for Pittsburgh looks to be nearly kaput. The Pirates must keep the victories going to crawl back up the NL Central standings.
Heading into Saturday's games, the Pirates are dead last in the standings. Despite their record, the team is only 2½ games out of second in the NL Central.
The Pirates and Mariners are back in action on Saturday. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:05 Eastern.
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