Right-hander Paul Skenes clocked in at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 15, just like he did a year before, as the starting pitcher for the National League. Skenes threw 14 pitches against the American League, got three outs including two strikeouts, and walked off the field, his work complete.
With Skenes done, a plaintive cry came from social media:
Another inning PLZ?!🙏
— Olivia Dunne (@livvydunne) July 16, 2025
Olivia Dunne wishing for the NL squad to let her boyfriend pitch one more inning sounded a lot like tweets that come from Pittsburgh Pirates fans who want the same for Skenes when he pitches during the regular season.
In reality, Skenes came into the All-Star break as one of the busiest pitchers in the majors; only four pitchers had compiled more innings in the first half of the season. It just doesn’t seem like it.
MLB innings pitched leaders (through first half)
Garrett Crochet — 129⅓
Logan Webb — 125⅔
Zack Wheeler — 122
Max Fried — 122
Framber Valdez — 121
Tarik Skubal — 121
Paul Skenes — 121
The evidence is right there, but it’s misleading, because the Pirates have been abbreviating Skenes’ outings lately. In reverse order, here are the individual innings totals and pitch totals for Skenes’ final six outings heading into the break:
Aren’t there nine innings in a baseball game, typically? At least seven or eight. Skenes told Pitcher List before the break that the amount the Pirates use him has a proportionate relationship to how well his team is doing in the standings. And the Bucs ain’t doing too good. The Pirates fell to 3-11 in July and 39-61 overall after getting swept by the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. They’re not competing for the playoffs again, not having reached the postseason since 2015, and so there’s no good reason for Skenes to wring every possible inning from his right arm — or so the Pirates think. Skenes’ own personal view seems to align. Or he’s just being practical.
“I’m 23 years old, this is my first full season in the big leagues, and we’re 15 games under .500, so you can, you know, chalk it up to whatever you want to — but that’s where we’re at,” Skenes said. “And I was throwing a lot of innings — for a while, I was leading the league in innings. But we’re at the point where there are other things to, you know, worry about.”
Only two other pitchers, American Leaguers Tarik Skubal and Garrett Crochet, had a (slightly) more valuable first half than Skenes, using FanGraphs WAR to meadure. Nobody in MLB had a lower ERA or adjusted ERA. If he’s not the best pitcher in the league, Skenes is second or third, just barely having reached age 23. While he already has developed into an elite pitcher, the Pirates are woefully short of other successes on the major-league roster. Before Skenes arrived in 2024, the Bucs appeared to be trending upward after going through a tanking period to help their annual draft position. They won 76 games in ’23, a 14-game improvement after back-to-back 100-loss seasons, and they repeated with another 76 wins when Skenes was a rookie in ’24. By timing alone, the Pirates should be amidst the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers near the top of the NL Central, not continuing to feed at the bottom. But the club fired manager Derek Shelton in May after starting 12-26. It’s been nearly six years since they promoted Ben Cherington to run the front office. They’re about 120 games under .500 since doing so.
Skenes continuing to blossom has been one of the few highlights of the season. But the Pirates are going to cut back with him, too. Because Skenes threw 160 innings between Triple-A and the majors in ’24, interim manager Don Kelly said they’d likely be putting restrictions on his usage no matter the team’s record or place in the standings. Skenes has logged 121 innings in 20 starts, with 12 or 13 starts more likely to come.
“I wish that we were closer,” Kelly said. “But even if we were at the top of the division, it still doesn’t change that Paul Skenes is still in his second season in the big leagues. Ultimately, our goal is to take care of not just Paul, but all of our players.”
The Pirates already caught flak about Skenes’ playing time before he even reached the majors. They waited until the second week of May in 2024 to promote him from the minors. The delay appeared to be part of a strategy for Bob Nutting’s ownership group to delay when Skenes someday could file for free agency. Regardless of the team’s intentions, the timing became irrelevant when Skenes performed so well that he won NL Rookie of the Year and was rewarded with a fully vested 2024 season, per recent MLB rules changes. Limiting Skenes’ innings now is another part of that strategy, presented to fans as a way to keep him in Pittsburgh for longer, at least until they start to play competitively again. Whenever that is. Skenes is on track to hit free agency in 2030, unless the Pirates negotiate a contract extension. Nutting apologists say that the billionaire ownership group can’t afford it. The trading of right-hander Gerrit Cole for prospects in 2018 is probably the most relevant analogy.
Among frustrated Pirates fans, a group is calling for Nutting to sell the team. At least one fan demanding it could be heard from the press box at PNC Park over the recent weekend series against the White Sox, who came in with about the same record as the Pirates before winning all three games. Funny thing: A lot of White Sox fans want their ownership to sell the team, too, and Jerry Reinsdorf reportedly is working on it.
Funny exchange that was audible from the press box:
Fan: "Sell the team!"
Someone else: "Yeah, both of 'em!"
— Jason Mackey (@JMackeyPG) July 20, 2025
Pirates ownership has its critics and, kind of unbelievably, so does Skenes. He came into his All-Star Game start with a 4-8 record, as if the public didn’t learn long ago not to judge pitchers by their personal won-loss record. Still, some have taken the opportunity to scold Skenes for … not allowing fewer runs (?), or at least for not pitching more innings — as if it would help the Pirates somehow score more runs. The Pirates are 9-11 in Skenes starts, which is to his credit, considering how far under .500 they are when he doesn’t pitch.
Skenes said it can’t be helped what people think.
“Whatever the criticisms are, good for them,” Skenes said. “I don’t see any of it. I don’t care about any of it. I’m gonna go out there and pitch until they take the ball away from me. So that’s where we’re at.”
