Paul Skenes is already attempting to take his sport to the subsequent degree.
Recent off top-of-the-line rookie campaigns from a pitcher in current baseball historical past, the Pirates ace is including two new weapons this spring — a cutter and a two-seam fastball.
Earlier than this spring, Skenes already featured six pitches, together with a 100-plus mph fastball, a “splinker,” and a sweeper.
Apparently, that wasn’t sufficient for the flame-throwing phenom.
“Really, [I’m] just trying to create more swing decisions,” Skenes informed MLB.com final month. “That’s what it boils down to.”
After a three-inning begin on Thursday, Skenes spoke with Yahoo Sports activities about his new cutter.
“I didn’t have anything like that before, and it was kind of like, ‘Well, I throw 100. Why don’t I throw a 90 mph slider,’ basically?” Skenes stated. “Why don’t I throw a breaking ball that’s around 90? Because I can. My sweeper was around 85 last year, and so that’s part of it, but the sweeper is so big that if I don’t get any swings on the cutter, it’s still going to get me swings on the sweeper.”
Skenes dominated throughout his first yr within the large leagues, posting a 1.96 ERA throughout 23 begins with 170 strikeouts in simply 133 innings en path to the Nationwide League Rookie of the 12 months award.
In July, Skenes received the beginning nod for the NL within the All-Star sport, changing into the fourth rookie in MLB historical past to begin the Midsummer Basic.
Skenes debuted with the Pirates barely a yr after being drafted No. 1 total out of LSU through the 2023 MLB Draft, dwelling as much as the huge hype that adopted him all through his school and minor league profession.
