The radar doesn’t lie
Two miles an hour. That is what Paul Skenes has shed off his fastball. Barely a rounding error on the page. A small earthquake when the arm in question belongs to one of the best pitchers of his generation.
Pittsburgh’s phenom is riding through the first genuine rough patch of his career. Nine wins, ten losses, a 3.96 ERA. Respectable. Nowhere near what he has set as his own bar. Zoom in on his last 15 starts and that number balloons to 5.20, a stretch he has simply never lived in before.
The velocity chart tells its own story. He showed up throwing 98.8 mph. Last year, 98.2. This season, 96.9. Somewhere along the way, a little bite went missing.
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He is not losing sleep over it
Skenes waves the whole thing off. “I think it’s funny that people only ask me about it when I have a bad outing,” he said. He feels healthy, he insists, and he does not believe he needs to touch triple digits to make hitters miss.
His resume argues the same case. Three All-Star nods at 24. Reigning National League Cy Young. Rookie of the Year in 2024. Stack up his first two seasons and that 1.96 ERA sat atop the entire sport. First overall pick in 2023, and he built all of that in a blink. Almost nobody moves that fast.
Miami is next on the card
Now comes the part where he answers on the mound. Skenes draws the Miami Marlins on Tuesday, an opponent that has mostly cooperated: one win, one loss, a 2.60 ERA across three meetings.
He has scraped together just two quality starts since June 21. Pittsburgh cannot keep waiting. They need the real Skenes back, the one who chokes the life out of a lineup and turns every outing into something worth showing up early for.
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