Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes loved an amazing rookie marketing campaign in 2024. The appropriate-hander posted an 11-3 document with the Pirates with an ERA of simply 1.96, together with a WHIP of 0.947 whereas averaging 12 strikeouts per 9 innings. For his efforts, Skenes was named the beginning pitcher for the Nationwide League within the All-Star Sport, secured NL Rookie of the Yr honors, and completed third in NL Cy Younger voting.
Now on the cusp of his second MLB marketing campaign, Skenes needs to make life even harder for hitters.
Skenes was on the bump Saturday for his Spring Coaching debut towards the Baltimore Orioles and flashed two new pitches: A cutter, and a two-seam fastball. The righty was set to debut earlier this spring, however that outing was rained out.
He began the outing Saturday towards Baltimore proper the place he completed, hanging out Cedric Mullins to open the underside of the primary. Skenes lasted three innings, hanging out 4 and giving up three hits, together with one run.
Nevertheless it was the 2 new pitches — particularly the cutter — that caught the eye of many. Rob Friedman shared a video of Skenes’ cutter on social media, as Skenes acquired Ryan O’Hearn to swing and miss on the cutter over the interior half of the plate:
Friedman then shared an overlay of Skenes throwing the cutter and the fastball, to focus on simply how powerful that mixture might be on hitters:
Skenes, who completed the day having thrown 53 pitches, 30 of them for strikes, talked about mixing within the two pitches after the outing.
“You’ve simply acquired to combine it in. Study some stuff about it. Nevertheless it’s going to be good, I believe,” mentioned the right-hander. “The lineup is form of irrelevant somewhat bit whenever you’re engaged on new stuff, and whenever you’re engaged on making an attempt to determine how they have an effect on one another. The most important factor was simply getting within the zone and seeing the place we’re at.”
Skenes already had a devastating arsenal to depend on when on the bump, main with a four-seam fastball that averages within the 98 MPH vary, a sinker, a curveball, a sweeper, a slider, and a changeup. In keeping with Statcast Skenes threw the four-seamer 39% of the time final 12 months, adopted by the sinker (28%), the curveball (11%), and the sweeper (10%).
Including two extra pitches to that lineup?
That actually will make life harder on opposing hitters this 12 months.
