PITTSBURGH — In one of the most anticipated major league debuts in franchise history, Paul Skenes took the mound in his big league debut for the Pirates Saturday afternoon in front of a packed PNC Park.
In front of almost 35,000 fans Saturday, Skenes had the opportunity to pitch in front of an energized crowd who were on the edge of their seats every pitch that the flame-thrower threw Saturday afternoon.
Following the game, Skenes had a chance to reflect on the atmosphere that surrounded him and what his experience taking the mound at PNC was like in his first start.
“It was a cool experience,” Skenes said. “Everybody talks about the stadium and how amazing the skyline is. The fans were into it so it was just an awesome day.”
Even though he was not given the decision as he pitched four innings, Skenes still put on an impressive show in his debut as the Pirates went on to beat Chicago 10-9.
The 6-foot-6 right-hander pitched into the fifth allowing three runs, on six hits, walking two and fanning seven batters in his first start in the big leagues.
“He [Paul Skenes] did a great job,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said following the game. “I think that he was a little over-amped during the game so his fastball command wasn’t as sharp as he had seen it in Indianapolis. Overall, his stuff plays and it was a good experience for him. Those are some good major league hitters that he went up against and they made him work and he will learn from it and he’ll be able to build off of it.”
The 21-year-old right-hander started his afternoon striking out the first two batters that he faced getting the Cubs designated hitter Mike Tauchman to foul-tip a 100 mph fastball on the sixth pitch of his at-bat. He then switched up his speeds and got Chicago right fielder Seiya Suzuki out swinging on three pitches mixing in a “splinker” [Sinker splitter hybrid pitch] and two sliders.
The “splinker” is not a pitch that a lot of pitchers throw, Shelton was not phased by the hybrid pitch that Skenes threw due to the experience that he has had throwing it over the past two months.
“I was not surprised at all,” Shelton said. Yasmani had caught him and one of the things he had said when he came back, I don’t know what we call it but he’s like, ‘this pitch is different’ and you don’t see very many guys, you don’t see anybody throw it at 95-96 so I think the fact that he had caught him and having the conversation with he, it was a little bit of an idea but until you see it live I mean, it’s different. The fact that he had the experience, I think someone doing it for the first time or having seen it for the first time would be a little more challenging but the fact that he had caught him I think was helpful.”
Skenes finished his day allowing three runs on the afternoon, the right-hander had the strikeout pitch working as he finished his afternoon with seven getting four swinging and three looking.
Throughout his time as a pitcher in college at LSU and his time in the minors, it was very seldom that Skenes found himself in precarious situations out on the mound as in his 12 starts down on the farm, the 6-foot-6 right-hander allowed just seven runs in 34 innings posting a 1.85 ERA.
On Saturday, Skenes found himself in unfamiliar territory as he fell behind several hitters throughout his start and also found himself in a bases-loaded jam in the second inning.
After hitting Chicago shortstop Nico Hoerner, Skenes went on to issue a walk to Michael Busch and then gave up a single to Miles Mastroboni.
But even with the bases full of Cubs, Skenes found a way to work out of the inning freezing Yan Gomes on an inside fastball at the knees and then got some help from Nick Gonzales who made a diving play and threw out Tauchman for the final out of the inning to get out of the inning.
A big reason why he had so much success working out of counts and out of the jam came from the man behind the dish that was catching him, Yasmani Grandal.
Grandal and Skenes both worked with one another in Indianapolis when Grandal was rehabbing from an injury he suffered before the team broke Spring Training back in March.
With Grandal catching the Skenes before, it gave the pitcher confidence when it came to the way he attacked hitters during his start.
“It was great to work with him [Yasmani] again,” Skenes said. “He knows how to attack hitters and read them so I just trusted him and will trust him moving forward. It is fun to throw to him.”
Following working out of the second-inning jam, Skenes impressed throughout the final two innings of his outing as even after giving up a home run into left field, Skenes struck out three more batters.
Skenes’ afternoon ended after giving up back-to-back hits in the fifth inning and later was charged with two more runs after Kyle Nicolas walked the bases loaded twice after throwing 12 straight balls.
Now with his big league debut out of the way, Skenes now looks to get into a better routine that he has been able to get his first major league start out of the way.
“It is going to be nice to get into a routine,” Skenes said. “I am big into routines so the last week or so has been really tough to get into one so it will be nice to get into a routine this week.”
First appeared on www.timesonline.com