Paul Skenes won the NL Rookie of the Year and Cy Young in back-to-back seasons. His quest for a second Cy got off to a horrid start. Skenes has never quite imploded as he did in his Opening Day start against the New York Mets. It’s just one start, but it’s certainly an inauspicious start to what was supposed to be a brilliant year.
Paul Skenes implodes vs. Mets on Opening Day
Paul Skenes had a career ERA lower than 2.00 after a blistering, historic start to his career. Blips happen all the time, but the third year of Skenes’ career did not start the way anyone envisioned. Poor defense and a red-hot New York Mets offense prevented Skenes from even making it one inning.
He recorded just two outs and yielded five runs before he was pulled. The Pittsburgh Pirates ace left to sarcastic cheers after allowing four hits, two walks, and a hit batter in one inning of action. He struck out one batter.
“I’ll rewatch it at some point,” Skenes said of his brutal start, “but I’m not as upset about this for me personally as people would probably think.” The numbers are staggering, but they don’t quite tell the whole story. His ERA from the outing is 67.50, but his FIP is 14.13.
Neither metric is good, but with better defense, Skenes would’ve survived a little longer, and it wouldn’t have looked quite as disastrous as it did. Notably, center fielder Oneil Cruz badly misread a flyball that led to multiple runs.
Bad luck
The first three batters produced a walk, a single, and a sac fly before bad luck started for Paul Skenes. Jorge Polanco reached first with a slow dribbler right in front of Skenes before new outfielder Luis Robert Jr. grinded out a 10-pitch walk, fouling off five pitches before finally wearing Skenes down.
That’s when Oneil Cruz came into play. Cruz made two gaffes back-to-back. The converted outfielder should’ve caught the first ball for a sacrifice fly to tie the game at two runs apiece. Then, Cruz couldn’t see the ball in the sun on the next at-bat, leading to another run scored.
Skenes then recovered with a strikeout before hitting Francisco Alvarez. That prompted manager Don Kelly to mercifully put an end to Skenes’ abysmal start. It was a shocking turn of events for the Pirates, who jumped out to a 2-0 lead with Skenes yet to come onto the mound.
Manager discusses
Typically, Paul Skenes is good enough to overcome bad starts, but Don Kelly decided to take him out before further damage. Skenes could’ve bounced back after throwing only 37 pitches. Even though it was his first start of the year, Skenes had worked up enough to pitch a regular outing during Spring Training.
“He’s a competitor,” manager Don Kelly said. “He wants to stay out there and pitch, and it’s a really tough thing going to get him in the first inning right there. At the bottom of it is Paul’s health. Getting close to 40 pitches, at 37 pitches, and Lindor had a seven pitch at-bat that first at-bat. If he runs another seven to 10, you’re into dangerous territory with a starting pitcher in one inning, so I just had to make the move.”
Skenes is another notable MLB superstar who played for Team USA that is off to a slow start. Logan Webb, another ace for the Americans, had a dreadful outing on Wednesday night: five innings, nine hits, six runs, one walk, one hit batter, and seven strikeouts.
Aaron Judge, the captain of the American squad, went 0-5 with four strikeouts in that same contest. He’s the only Yankees player that night to not reach base, making for an interesting trend with Team USA stars.
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