Paul Skenes is living up to the hype as MLB’s scariest new pitcher

On Tuesday night Paul Skenes took the bump for a start on the road against the St. Louis Cardinals, amidst your standard pre-game buzz.

When he left in the bottom of the seventh inning in a scoreless tie, he did so to a standing ovation from the St. Louis fans.

It was that kind of start, in what is becoming that kind of rookie season for the flamethrower.

Skenes struck out eight over 6.1 innings of work, allowing just five hits and walking none. While he got a no-decision on the night, the Pittsburgh Pirates scratched out a 2-1 victory over the Cardinals, their sixth win in their last ten games. And while Pittsburgh is 6.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central, their performance of late — spurred on by what Skenes has done — has many wondering if the Pirates will be buyers at the trade deadline.

Skenes got off to another strong start Tuesday night, striking out the first two Cardinals hitters he faced. While his trademark fastball played a role in both punchouts, as he hit 100 on the radar gun twice against leadoff hitter Masyn Winn and then twice against No. 2 hitter Alec Burleson, both strikeouts came on a breaking ball.

And nasty breaking balls at that.

Skenes first got Winn looking on a nasty curveball that topped out in the low 80s, just one pitch after Winn fouled off a 100-mph fastball:

Then with Burleson it was another curveball for a swing-and-miss punchout, after Skenes brought two-straight 100-mph heaters to the plate:

If you want a glimpse of just how difficult it is to face Skenes right now Rob Friedman, known as “Pitching Ninja” on social media, put together this incredible overlay of two pitches from Winn’s at-bat, one a 100-mph fastball and the other the devastating breaking ball that Skenes used to strike him out:

Good luck, hitters.

In the third Skenes brought another nasty pitch to the punchout party, his “Splinker.” A hybrid between a splitter and a sinker, with the velocity of a fastball but the vertical drop of a splitter, Skenes used it to strike out DH Matt Carpenter:

As noted in that above-linked piece from MLB from May, since pitch tracking began only nine pitchers have hit 95 mph with a splitter.

That includes Skenes.

The rookie hurler lasted into the seventh, having allowed just four hits over the first six innings of work. Pittsburgh and St. Louis were locked in a scoreless tie when Skenes took the bump in the bottom of the inning, and he fanned infielder Nolan Gorman for his eighth strikeout of the night, which came on his 99th pitch.

It hit 99 on the radar gun:

Third baseman Nolan Arenado was the next hitter to come to the plate, and after his double put the go-ahead run on second base for St. Louis on Skenes’ 103rd pitch of the night, Pirates manager Derek Shelton decided it was time to go get his rookie. The Pirates have been keeping Skenes on a pitch count — he left a game against the Chicago Cubs back in May after 100 pitches despite not allowing a hit — and the 103 pitches he threw Tuesday night represent a career-high mark.

As he departed, the St. Louis fans showed their appreciation for the rookie:

The Pirates put two runs on the board in the top of the ninth to take a 2-0 lead, and held on for the 2-1 win after St. Louis cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the ninth on a Gorman solo shot.

But Skenes was a big part of the post-game discussion, with good reason.

“He was extremely efficient,” Shelton said. “Overall, he was very impressive. We continue to see growth out of Paul.”

“I felt like we threw some tough at-bats on him,” said St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol. ”He made pitches at the right time. He did his job.”

While Skenes got a no decision on Tuesday night, on the year the rookie hurler is 3-0 with an ERA of 2.43 and a WHIP of 0.96. While Skenes does not have enough innings of work to qualify as a statistical leader yet, that ERA would be good for ninth-best in the MLB at the moment. The same goes for that low WHIP rate.

When the Pirates drafted Skenes with the first-overall selection in last year’s MLB Draft, he was tabbed as a “generational, can’t-miss prospect.” While that phrase is thrown around all too often these days, regardless of sport, Skenes certainly looks the part through his first six MLB starts.

And it seems Cardinals fans would agree.