PITTSBURGH -- Manager Don Kelly was greeted by boos as he walked out to PNC Park’s mound, but the Pirates skipper hadn’t made a motion to the bullpen yet. As the infielders congregated to the center of the infield, Kelly instead opted to chat with Paul Skenes.
The right-hander was already at 98 pitches, so Kelly wanted to check in with his ace. Did he feel good about going 5 2/3 innings? Or should they let it ride for one more batter?
“I think it was like in Minnesota, like he wanted to get talked out of it,” Skenes said. “So I was just like, ‘Hey Donnie, what do you got?’ And he was like, ‘What do you got?’ And I'm like, ‘I got another hitter.’ And that was it.”
Skenes did have another hitter in him, even if it took just one more pitch. He got Adrian Del Castillo to fly out on the first offering of the at-bat, allowing Skenes to exit to a proper ovation from the home crowd. With his 15th quality start secured, Skenes then watched from the dugout as the Pirates wrapped up a series win over the Diamondbacks with a 6-0 victory.
The outing wrapped a dominant month of July for Skenes, who allowed just two runs in his five starts, but only totaled 27 innings (0.67 ERA). That was by design. He’s going to blow past his career highs for innings this season -- his 133 frames already matches his total in the Majors last season -- so the Pirates opted to ease off the gas in the middle portion of the season to try to manage his workload.
Right now, the Bucs are back on the upswing of letting Skenes have a longer leash and go deeper into games, so he’s not going to five-and-dive his way through the second half of the season. But this was the first time he had thrown 90 pitches since June 19, so it was worth burning a mound visit for the wellness check.
“I’m going out there checking on him, it’s a hot day, close to 100 pitches,” Kelly said. “We’re ramping him back up a bit, as far as we kept his pitch count down a little bit. I just wanted to make sure that he was in a good spot there to finish it off.”
Sunday was a prime example of why Skenes is so special and worth this level of precision in managing his workload. He struck out nine over his six scoreless frames, with his changeup and sweeper accounting for seven of those punchouts.
He needed to navigate traffic on the bases early, facing having a runner in scoring position from the second through fourth inning. The Diamondbacks managed to get a runner on third with less than two outs in the second and fourth, but Skenes helped his cause by getting James McCann to strike out twice -- once on a changeup to the low corner on his pitching-arm side, the other on a runaway sweeper.
It may not have been Skenes' cleanest outing in terms of efficiency and getting ahead in the count, but he executed when he needed to and lowered his ERA to a Major League-best 1.83.
“Honestly, I think that heat kind of helped to an extent because I was just focused on staying out there and not passing out or throwing up or anything, so I was just focusing on making the next pitch rather than anything else,” Skenes said. “So I think that helped.”
This wasn’t the first time Kelly has opted for a chat rather than a pitching change on a mound visit, but it’s still rare and shows the faith the manager has in his player. Not only to execute, but to not overdo it since they know they can empty the tank.
“There’s got to be trust between staff, players and going out there in that moment,” Kelly said. “I trust him that he’s going to shoot me straight. We’re honest with them and we shoot them straight when we need to. That’s what we’re trying to build, that trust and knowing exactly where they’re at.
“You can tell guys [to] empty the tank at certain times. He had a little bit more left.”
There’s plenty more left for the final two months of the season, too.
“August is tough. Mentally, physically," Skenes said. “I think a lot of July, I’ve been trying to get ready for that. So [I] just got to keep doing that -- keep up my body in good positions and go out there and keep pitching well.”