Paul Skenes put on one black shoe and then another. He slowly unwound his 6-foot-9 frame from the chair in front of the closet, threw on a blue blazer, ran his hands through his black hair and turned to face the cameras.
It’s not just the 21-year-old’s things that are different.
While most of his Pittsburgh Pirates teammates filed quietly out of the clubhouse wearing T-shirts, shorts and sneakers following a 7-6 loss to San Francisco on Thursday, Skenes appeared to be heading out for a business dinner.
Suitable for a player who is very, very serious about his dream job.
There is a maturity to Skenes on and off the mound that belies his age. Both were on full display in his third big league start, when Skenes didn’t so much dominate the Giants for six innings as outscore them.
On a day when his command of his breaking balls was iffy at best and he “only” threw four pitches that reached 100 mph and struck out just three of the 23 batters he faced, Skenes found a way to make it work anyway.
“I just have to make the shots because they’re going to put the ball in play,” Skenes said. “I just have to trust my stuff and believe that this will (create) weak contact. Overall, very good.”
Six days after Skenes threw six electrifying hitless innings against the Cubs, the Giants managed to beat him on six singles and a walk. They also hit a pair of double plays and managed just one run, despite getting at least one base runner in every inning except the second.
And perhaps that’s as important in Skenes’ development as what he displayed against the Cubs. He won’t always do his best. No pitcher does that. Still, he gave the Pirates a chance to win anyway, in the kind of performance that could end up accelerating a learning curve that is already far along.
“There will be a lot of moments of growth for him, but in his last start he didn’t give up a hit,” Pittsburgh manager Derek Shelton said. “So this start he has to navigate traffic, he has to navigate some veteran hitters. It will definitely make him better.”
San Francisco third baseman Matt Chapman — like Skenes, a graduate of El Toro High School in Lake Forest, Calif. — doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that the Giants returned only after Skenes left.
“I think the future is bright for this guy,” Chapman said. “And it’s exciting to see someone from the same school go out there and succeed as quickly as he did.”
The way Skenes carries himself and goes about his business makes it seem like he’s been around for a while. He didn’t do that.
Three weeks ago he was in Triple-A. A year ago, he was at LSU helping the Tigers win the national title. Two springs ago, he was a catcher/reliever at the Air Force Academy who faced the difficult but necessary decision to transfer if he wanted to have a chance at the big leagues sooner rather than later.
Now he is here. And in a way he is already a sensation. His matches are now known simply as “Skenes Day”. Livvy Dunne, Skenes’ girlfriend and gymnast/influencer, was among the 23,000 – some of them wearing his number 30 jersey, others with their own version of his trademark mustache – who turned out to watch Skenes during a weekday matinee, more than 8,000 more people than the largest crowd for a breakout game at PNC Park this season.
All this for a player who won’t turn 22 until next week and has now thrown a total of 22 1/3 innings in the major leagues. Skenes tried to take the wave of notoriety in stride. Still, there will be days when things don’t go his way. Considering the way Skenes was fighting his breaks, Thursday could have been one of those games. It was not.
“I think everyone obviously expects him to go out there and dominate everyone … and there’s a good chance he will,” Pirates catcher Joey Bart said. “But it’s really hard for a kid who was pitching in the SEC Tournament last year at this time. So I really like the way he composed himself. I was impressed.”
Even if it means that Bart, now six years into his professional career, has to learn a few things on the fly, including how to deal with Skenes’ “splinker,” a splitter-and-sinker hybrid that dives into the strike zone in the mid-sixties. 90.
“I’ve never heard of it, I’ve never seen it, I didn’t even know what it was when he threw it at me, to be honest,” Bart said. “But it’s good.”
And Skenes is good. Great? Only time will tell. Still, he and fellow rookie pitcher Jared Jones gave Pittsburgh something it has been lacking for most of the past three decades: hope.
Jones, 22, kept the Giants in check on Wednesday. Skenes did the same less than 24 hours later. Pittsburgh’s bullpen found a way to let both winnable games slip away. It’s one of the reasons Shelton’s frustration afterward was so palpable.
The arrival of two of the best young pitchers in the game has raised the stakes and buzz around a franchise that has been an afterthought of late.
The window to win in Pittsburgh is opening. Skenes is proving he is more than capable of helping with the lift.
