Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes has been surprisingly human this season. The Cy Young Award winner has been plodding along of late, sitting on a 6-7 record with a 3.10 ERA. His WHIP still looks good at 0.97, and he has 114 striekouts in 93 innings pitched.
But one of the biggest differences of late is the drop in velocity. Skenes is no longer hitting 100 mph on his fastball, and his overall MPH has dropped. Skenes was averaging 98-99 on his fastball the past two seasons. This year, he’s hovering
around 96-97. So not a dramatic drop, but still a noticeable one. In addition, he hasn’t won a game since May 12.
Pirates GM Ben Cherington recently commented to 93.7 The Fan about that velocity drop. Here’s what he said:
“The most important thing is we aren’t getting anything from him that there is any physical issue. I think zooming out, my personal opinion is, this is fairly standard for starting pitchers over time, including elite ones. There are smaller stretches of time where there is some small regression that can be for any number of reasons and then three months later they feel different. It’s not uncommon.”
So there you have it. A public vote of confidence from the Bucs GM, but that’s not all that suprising that Cherington would comes to the defense of his Ace. But the fact of the matter is, Skenes is not performing at the level we are used to seeing, and when looking for a culprit, it’s easy to notice the drop in velocity.
Other top pitchers like Justin Verlander were able to still be successful despite velocity drops, but Verlander’s happened later in his career. Skenes is still jus 24 years old. Is it time to worry? Probably not yet. As Cherington mentioned, it’s a long MLB season and players are going to go through rough patches in their career. But if it continues all year, we might have some unexpected and uncomfortable Skenes questions to ask in the future.
