Pirates Pitcher 2005

[Maitane Roderiques]

The top pick in last year's amateur draft will make his major league debut for the Pirates on Saturday when they face the Cubs, a person with direct knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.

The 21-year-old, taken with the first pick last summer following a couple of standout years at LSU, has dominated opponents at Triple-A Indianapolis. Skenes, whose fastball regularly hits triple digits, is 0-0 with a 0.99 ERA in seven Triple-A starts, with 45 strikeouts in 27 1/3 innings.

The Pirates have brought Skenes along slowly during the spring, methodically ramping up his pitch count at Triple-A. They have given him a little more latitude recently. He threw 75 pitches on April 30 and 66 on Sunday against Buffalo.

Skenes' arrival represents a significant milepost for the organization. General manager Ben Cherington has overseen a top-to-bottom overhaul since taking over in the fall of 2019. Some of the pieces he has acquired and/or developed since his arrival either are on the major league roster (Jones) or on the cusp.

It also starts the clock on Pittsburgh's hopeful return to contention. The Pirates finished last in the NL Central from 2019-22 before taking a step forward last season. The expectation internally is for the competitive window to open either this year or next. Skenes could have an outsized impact on the timeline.

Skenes' debut figures to be the most anticipated by a major league pitching prospect since Stephen Strasburg arrived in the majors with Washington in 2009 and promptly struck out 14 Pirates players in his first start.

Pittsburgh moved on from Cole in part because of concerns about being able to pay him long-term. The Pirates appear to be in a slightly different position now, having signed third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes, centerfielder Bryan Reynolds and pitcher Mitch Keller to lengthy contracts in recent years.

Skenes, if he delivers on his considerable promise, may test Pittsburgh's commitment. That discussion, however, is for down the road. For now, Skenes' debut gives the Pirates something they have lacked for most of the last decade: considerable buzz.

"He knows how to pitch for sure," Brewers first baseman Jake Bauers said postgame. "He's throwing every pitch he had for strikes today. Not a whole lot was hitting the fat part of the plate, and when a guy can do that, it's going to be tough sledding for sure."

Skenes improved to 6-0 on the season, and the Pirates moved to 8-3 overall when he starts. He's Pittsburgh's first pitcher to take a no-hitter at least seven innings since AJ Burnett on July 31, 2012.

"I thought the Brewers did a really good job with him," Shelton added. "We had not seen anybody make him grind like that early in the game. Even without giving up hits, the fact that he was able to take his game to the level that he needed to finish it, I thought was important.

Skenes, the fifth rookie to start an All-Star Game, faced Cleveland Guardians left fielder Steven Kwan, Baltimore Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, New York Yankees right fielder Juan Soto and New York Yankees center fielder Aaron Judge in the bottom of the first inning.

At this time last year, Skenes was the No. 1 overall pick by the Pirates in the 2023 MLB Draft. Since then, Skenes has taken to baseball world by storm, quickly becoming one of the best pitchers in the league. This season, Skenes has an ERA of 1.90 and a 6-0 record in 11 starts.

The two were playing together on the United States 12U national team, in Mazatlan, Mexico, in 2014, well before Skenes would become baseball's biggest pitching phenom. Crow-Armstrong pitched in the tournament, but Skenes never took the mound.

The No. 1 overall pick from last summer's loaded MLB draft has wowed the baseball world with his mound presence and electric stuff, throwing 29 pitches at 100 mph or faster -- already the most by any starter this season. Just two starts into his big league career, Skenes' outings have become must-watch events.

In his first major league start on May 11, Skenes said he didn't really feel like himself. Perhaps it was because of all the hype leading up to the day or just the nerves that come with a major league debut, but the tall right-hander gave up three runs on six hits and two walks in four innings at home against the Cubs. Six days later, in his first road start, Skenes showed what all the hype was about.

"It's not an easy game to play but it's a lot easier when you have fastball command and command over your pitches," Skenes told ESPN after his second game. "It wasn't necessarily working in my debut, but it was working this time."

Skenes struck out the first seven batters he faced. He finished with 11 strikeouts over six hitless innings, setting a franchise mark for the most K's by a Pirates pitcher at Wrigley Field, one of the game's most iconic venues.

Any thought that the Cubs would have an advantage seeing the same pitcher within a week were erased with every eye-popping pitch. Skenes averaged an incredible 99.3 mph on his fastball, 94.8 on his splitter, 86.8 on his change, 84 on his slider and 80 on his curve.

Mike Tauchman was among the many Cubs hitters who couldn't catch up to Skenes' stuff. Chicago's DH struck out three times, including a swing-and-miss on a 100-mph fastball that marked the end of Skenes' day in the sixth inning.

"The fastball command was good," Tauchman said. "And then he was able to tunnel that splitter/sinker -- or whatever he calls it -- off of it. And throw those all competitively. When you're dealing with someone with that velocity and command, and they make you make split-second decisions -- he did a good job."

That combination pitch is called a splinker (though officially tracked as a splitter by MLB Statcast), and the new wrinkle in Skenes' repertoire is threatening to make the already-daunting task of facing the sport's best young pitcher downright unfair.

"That's what attracted us to him," Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. "His ability with the pitch mix. You can look up and see 101 mph and get excited about it. The fact that he can spin the ball behind in the count, you don't see guys come out of college a year ago that have the ability to do that."

"Being able to limit the top for him or limit the bottom is going to be very important because his stuff plays really well at both levels," Crow-Armstrong said. "Anything that runs 18 inches at 100 mph is pretty tough."

Skenes said his phone blew up after the dominant performance, but admitted "that's been the norm for a while now" since he entered the spotlight while leading LSU to the College World Series title. One of the first people Skenes heard from after the outing at Wrigley was Ryan Theriot, a former LSU and Cubs infielder. The pitcher's performance reminded Theriot of a former Chicago strikeout artist.

"I know the [Stephen] Strasburg comps, but I feel like it's more like Kerry Wood in his prime," Theriot said in a phone interview. "Just the demeanor. I'm not talking about the stuff. I'm talking about the attitude and the demeanor."

That attitude is why the Pirates are confident he can handle the pressure of being a budding face of the franchise at such a young age. It helps that before transferring at LSU, Skenes attended the Air Force Academy and spent two years as an aspiring cadet.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

The last at-bat by a Pirates pitcher likely already has happened. In the bottom of the fifth inning of the final game of 2019, Trevor Williams flew out to right field on a 1-2 pitch from Cincinnati Reds right-hander Tyler Mahle.

If nothing else, Brault will carry the distinction of being the last Pirates starting pitcher to get a hit. On Sept. 27, he got a two-out single off Reds right-hander Anthony DeSclafani. Kevin Newman followed with a three-run homer and the Pirates won 6-5.

Bolton is a three-time, first-team All-Area pitcher for The Record, who helped guided the Bulldogs to two Tri-City Athletic League championships and two Sac-Joaquin Section Division I South titles over the past three seasons.

Skenes was born and raised in Orange County, California, where he attended El Toro High School and played three seasons of varsity baseball. Skenes initially attended the United States Air Force Academy and won the John Olerud Award, given annually to the best two-way player in college baseball, in 2022. Ahead of his junior season, Skenes transferred to LSU, where he won Southeastern Conference and national pitcher of the year honors as well as the Dick Howser Trophy. Skenes was part of the LSU pitching staff during the team's 2023 Men's College World Series championship win and was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player.

c80f0f1006