It feels cliche to ponder the possibility of the Pittsburgh Pirates shutting Paul Skenes down, even in what increasingly looks like another lost season for him and his team.
His overall numbers are far from bad relative to the rest of baseball. His 3.88 ERA is fine. His 2.99 FIP, which measures a pitcher’s effectiveness independent of the defense behind him, is very good. So is his 1.12 WHIP, which measures walks and hits per innings pitched.
Yes, his velocity is down, noticeably. Skenes topped out at 96.5 mph on Aug. 11, and his season average is at 96.8 mph on his four-seam vs a 98.2 mph average in 2025. No, he doesn’t look like the dominant Cy Young-caliber ace he was his first two seasons. And yes, that reality raises existential questions
about the club’s future, specifically his future with it. He also hasn’t fully turned into a proverbial pumpkin the way the narrative around this team would sometimes have one think.
It nevertheless became a lot harder to ignore the signs that Skenes may not complete the season Aug. 11 in Miami. Manager Don Kelly pulled Skenes after just five innings and 65 pitches against the Marlins, though he said after the game that the decision wasn’t injury related.
The underlying stat line was deceptive. He allowed just one earned run while scattering five hits and a walk, but he needed Bryan Reynolds to rob Griffin Conine on his final pitch of the evening to avoid a two-run homer that would have given the night a very different feel.
Before the game, Kelly made one of his frankest acknowledgements yet that something is wrong without pointing specifically to the physical element.
“The league is adjusting back,” he told reporters. “Paul’s gonna have to fight to make the adjustment back to the league and find a way to adjust himself. Yes, the [velocity]’s down. I think command has been a bigger thing, at least for me. That could come from multiple things. From trying too hard to trying to be too perfect. Maybe trying to get that [velocity] back. You can’t just go get it. How does Paul make the adjustment back?”
Much has been made locally about Skenes’ workload, which this year included the early ramp up to the World Baseball Classic coming off a career-high at all levels of 187 innings during his Cy Young campaign in 2025.
He’d have to average more than seven innings per start the rest of the way to hit that number again, assuming he finishes at or near his total of 32 games started last year.
Through that lens, Kelly’s decision could be seen as a further attempt to manage the number downward. Continuing to allow Skenes the space to work through the necessary adjustments without overexposing him in increasingly meaningless games.
The Pirates didn’t score a single run of support Tuesday night, after all. The bullpen pitched four scoreless innings the rest of the way, so Skenes’ early departure made no practical impact on the outcome.
Perhaps we should expect more of that the rest of the way, as opposed to an outright shut down. Especially as the race for the final wild-card spot in the National League becomes increasingly bleak.
The Pirates are now six games back of the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies, who are tied for wild card spots. The Marlins, Cardinals, Nationals and Reds all remain in front of them. And playoff odds via Fangraphs have almost halved again since Aug. 10. They now sit at 4.4%.
For his part, Skenes seemed to feel afterward that he’d made progress while demurring on the question of being pulled early.
POSTGAME: Paul Skenes on tonight's 2-0 shutout loss to the Marlins.
— Tyler Boronski (@TylerBoronski) August 12, 2026
Final line: 5 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, BB, 4 K
Pulled after 65 pitches, third fewest of his season. pic.twitter.com/OX1F4s1afs
“I thought it was better in terms of attacking guys,” he told reporters. “Kind of making pitches earlier in the count.
“If I were the manager, I’d probably do it, too. [Kelly] walked me through everything and it all made sense. Yeah, wish I could have gone more, but it kind of is what it is.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Are Pirates signaling a Paul Skenes shutdown? Or a more actively managed workload?
