Skenes battles through five scoreless in gritty, 'gutsy' start

PITTSBURGH -- Pirates manager Don Kelly had a word to describe Paul Skenes’ outing Tuesday: “Gutsy.”

That’s one of the highest praises a skipper can give, a moniker for a player who faced more adversity than expected and still prevailed.

The Pirates needed those guts Tuesday, as the pitching and defense prevailed to extend their winning streak to five, beating the Cardinals at PNC Park, 1-0. Skenes struck out five over five scoreless innings, but the Cardinals inflated his pitch count with foul balls and deep counts to get him out of the game early, so he had to settle for a no-decision.

“I think that's one of the things teams try to do against me,” Skenes said about the Cardinals working the count. “We've done a pretty good job at times this year of counteracting that. Today was one of the days that they did a better job than we did. There are a lot of pitches that I executed that they just touched. Some for hits, a lot for foul balls and some for outs. Just one of those days."

The Cardinals have been one of the peskier teams for Skenes throughout his young career. He has yet to record a win in any of his six outings against them, though he has posted a 2.39 ERA in that stretch. Skenes did a lot of things right to be efficient on Tuesday -- such as throwing 16 first-pitch strikes to his 20 batters faced -- but St. Louis only whiffed eight times and worked counts early. Skenes threw 88 pitches over his five innings, including 75 over the first four.

Kelly said postgame that they thought about having Skenes pitch the sixth, but opted to instead give Caleb Ferguson a chance for a clean inning against the middle of the Cardinals’ order.

That’s what 24 foul balls in five innings will do, and something plenty of teams would probably love to try to replicate to shorten Skenes’ outings.

“I feel that when Paul is pitching, that team is bringing their absolute best because they know Paul Skenes is pitching,” pitching coach Oscar Marin said. “There are going to be times where they don’t let him get deep in the counts and they’re going to swing away because they don’t want to get to two strikes and get to his nasty stuff, and there are going to be some teams that wait him out. I think it all depends on the team.”

Skenes came into this year determined to be more efficient and maximize his innings, experimenting with his pitch mix and buying into what Marin calls “process stats,” such as first-pitch strikes and strikes on 1-1 counts. They’re the small wins that quickly add up. So far, he’s thrown 111 innings, the fourth-most in baseball. In 23 starts last year, he threw just 133 innings, and with Skenes at 18 starts this year, it’s safe to say the process is working.

It’s also quite a departure from last year, where Skenes’ workload was heavily monitored all year. He always pitched with at least an extra day of rest in a five-man rotation. It was the first time he had ever pitched in that many calendar months, so he barely pitched in Spring Training and spent all of April slowly building up. Skenes admitted at the end of last year that the plan worked. Now this was the year to reap the benefits of being patient and throw more innings.

“It’s not just trying to be efficient,” Marin said. “It’s trying to be as productive as possible throughout an entire season. I think he’s nailing that right now.”

Plenty is still monitored with Skenes to keep him fresh. How many innings does he throw and what stress level are those innings? Pitching out of the stretch in a long inning counts more than a quiet frame, after all. Then there are factors below the surface that need to be tracked. How much travel has the team done recently? How many day games has he pitched? It can get humid in Pittsburgh, and that’s part of the equation as well.

All of it will be factored in as Skenes approaches a new career-high in innings this season, made possible in part by being more efficient.

“That's the beauty about this game,” Skenes said. “We have the opportunity to constantly evolve, play the cat-and-mouse game, and I think we're learning how to do that very well. I think there's still room to go, but obviously, throwing [more] innings is a product of being efficient. I want to say that I got to this many innings quicker than I did last year. Off the top of my head, I don't know, but it feels like that. Just got to keep going and keep learning."