PITTSBURGH (AP) — Paul Skenes might still be relatively new in the major leagues. The Pittsburgh Pirates star isn't new to baseball.
The 22-year-old has been pitching for a while. He knows that some days — hopefully most of them — he's going to have dominant stuff that bends pitches to his will and leaves bats flailing in pursuit.
Tuesday night against St. Louis was not one of those outings. The Cardinals touched Skenes for three runs in the third and two more in the sixth in a 5-3 loss that dropped Skenes to 0-3 against Pittsburgh's longtime NL Central rival.
Skenes didn't blame the worst start of his still-young career on chilly temperatures or his still-developing relationship with catcher Endy Rodriguez. He simply missed spots a couple of times and the Cardinals made him pay for it.
“It’s not like they hit the ball into the river or anything like that,” said Skenes after giving up five runs, the most he's surrendered in his 26 big league starts. "They just found some holes and I got behind in some counts and kind of let them get good swings off. Not going to sweat it. It is what it is.”
Skenes zipped through the first two innings, retiring six batters without going to so much as a two-ball count. His quickly faltered in the third.
Pedro Pages singled on the first pitch he saw, Masyn Winn followed one batter later with a sharp single to left and Victor Scott II hit the first triple of his big league career on a shot to deep right-center field that scored two. Scott then trotted home on Brendon Donovan's run-scoring base hit.
While Skenes said his stuff felt “good,” his mistakes often wound up closer to the middle of the plate than usual. And the Cardinals pounced.
“It’s funny, a lot of the times you get away with those,” Skenes said. "Just didn’t get away with them today. Kind of is what it is.”
The 22-year-old reigning National League Rookie of the Year overpowered Miami and Tampa Bay to start the season. Skidding St. Louis, which had dropped six of seven coming in, proved to be a step up in competition.
The start was Skenes second with Rodriguez behind the plate. Skenes worked almost exclusively with veteran Yasmani Grandal last season, leaning on the veteran as he adjusted to life as one of the game's brightest young stars.
Skenes and Rodriguez kept it simple in Tampa last week, relying heavily on a couple of pitches against the Rays. Skenes dipped into his quickly expanding repertoire — not complete with a two-seam fastball and a split-fingered fastball — this time out, a step in the right direction.
Perhaps even more encouraging, there were times when Skenes would get ready to signal Rodriguez to call a specific pitch when Skenes' pitch comm would buzz with that exact call.
“That happened with Endy quite a few times today,” Skenes said. "We’re thinking very similarly. I don’t think I shook today. I’m a fan of the game that he called and that we called together. It just comes down to executing.”
The last truly bumpy start for Skenes came back home in Southern California when the Los Angeles Dodgers chipped away for four runs in five innings. He responded by winning each of his next two starts, giving up all of two runs in the process.
“We haven’t seen a lot of rough ones (from him),” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. "But everything that has been on his plate, he’s handled very well. I expect him to come out the next time and be what we expect.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals in Pittsburgh, Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
