Pittsburgh Pirates Pitcher Paul Skens enjoyed a tremendous rookie campaign in 2024. With the whip Average of 12 strikeouts per nine innings at 0.947. Because of his efforts, the Skenes were selected as the National League starting pitcher in the All-Star Game. It's secured He came in third place in the NL Rookie of the Year honors and NL Cy Young's vote.
Now, in his second MLB campaign cusp, Skenes wants to make life even more difficult for batters.
Skenes was in the bump for their spring training debut on Saturday Baltimore Orioles I flashed two new pitches: a cutter and a two-seam fastball. Righty was scheduled to debut earlier this spring, but it was raining on the outing.
He began his outing with Baltimore right on Saturday, attacking Cedric Marine to open the first bottom. Skenes went on for three innings, giving up four hits and giving up three hits along with one run.
However, it was two new pitches, especially the cutter – that attracted the attention of many. Rob Friedman shared a video of Skenes' cutter on social media as Skenes rocked Ryan O'Hearn with a cutter on top of the inside half of the plate and missed it.
Friedman then shared an overlay of Sken throwing a fastball with a cutter, highlighting how difficult the combination would be for the batter.
After finishing the day with 53 pitches, Skens threw 30 of them for strikes and talked about mixing on two pitches after going out.
“You just have to mix it up. Let's learn a few things about it. But I think that's a good thing,” the right-hander said. “When we're working on new things and trying to understand how they affect each other, the lineup is a bit irrelevant. The biggest thing was getting into the zone and seeing where we are.”
The Skenes already have devastating weapons, relying on bumps, leading with a 4-seam fastball average of 98 mph range and a 4-seam fastball: sinker, curveball, sweeper, slider and changeup. According to Statcast The Skenes threw 39% of four-seamer times last year, 39% followed by sinkers (28%), curveballs (11%) and sweepers (10%).
Would you like to add two more pitches to that lineup?
It will really make life even tougher for the opposing batter this year.
