If you blinked, you may have missed the most exciting young arm in baseball on Saturday afternoon.
Paul Skenes toed the rubber at Yankee Stadium for the first time, but he wasn’t on the mound for long.
The time he did spend on it, he was worthy of the hype, striking out three Yankees and retiring all six batters he faced in a planned abbreviated outing to close out a memorable rookie year.
“Definitely glad to be able to finish the season and cool to do it here, cool to do it against this lineup. Wish I could keep going, but that’s where we’re at,” the dominant right-hander said after the Pirates topped the Yankees, 9-4, in The Bronx. “I like New York, the Stadium is one of the destinations in baseball for sure, a place to cross off your bucket list. Cool to be out there and pitch. Definitely going to keep checking it out tomorrow.”
With his famous girlfriend, LSU gymnast and social media star Livvy Dunne, watching from the stands, Skenes was as advertised, showcasing a 100 mph fastball with a mid-90s sinker and quality off-speed pitches.
He froze Juan Soto with a heater he dotted over the inside corner and got Aaron Judge to wave at a sweeper.
He finished his first of what should be many years in the big leagues with a microscopic 1.96 ERA and 170 strikeouts in 133 innings pitched.
He is the first rookie pitcher to make at least 23 starts and notch a sub-2.00 ERA since Scott Perry in 1918.
“Pretty dynamic. The ease with which he does it, you don’t feel like he’s max-effort out there,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s just easy velocity that he can step on the four-seam, sinker, change speeds on you really well. Because he does it with ease, it lends itself to him having real good command with it.”
Skenes, the first overall pick in the 2023 draft and the favorite to win the NL Rookie of the Year, became the fifth rookie to start the All-Star Game in July.
He finished the year strong, by allowing two earned runs in 24 September innings with 32 strikeouts.
Pirates manager Derek Shelton sat down with Skenes ahead of his last two starts to break down the plan with him of limiting his innings.
He threw five innings in his previous outing against the Reds last Sunday.
He wound up throwing 160 ¹/₃ innings this year, counting his work in the minor leagues before he was called up on May 11.
That should set him up for a somewhat normal workload next season.
“Just take the ball and pitch,” he said. “A lot to build off of for next year, but just gotta go win.”
Asked his hopes for 2025, Skenes said: “Win a lot of baseball games.”
That seems likely when he’s on the mound.
