Pirates Insider Podcast, Episode 33 (7/1 at Phillies)

Paul Skenes struggled against the Phillies, allowing eight runs (seven earned) over four innings. What bugged Skenes? Should there be greater concern considering the Pirates have now dropped his past nine starts? Also, Seth Hernandez and Edward Florentino were selected to the MLB All-Star Futures Game. Jason Mackey breaks it all down here.

Transcript

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Good morning, Pirates fans. This is the Pirates Insider Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Mackey, talking to you from Philadelphia following a 10-6 Pirates loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. And unfortunately, this has become a recurring theme. The nine straight, ninth straight Paul Skeen start, the Pirates have dropped. And well, we're going to have to talk about the elephant in the room because I have been on Paul Skeen's side, or I've defended this, or I've tried to talk people off the ledge, however you want to put it, and I'm losing steam. He did not look good tonight. There's no other way around it. Goes four innings, gives up eight runs, seven earns, six hits, two walks, five strikeouts. There was a 35-pitch inning, misplaced a few breaking balls, uh, gave up some home runs, like I said, uh plenty of contact, and it's, you know, we can have two separate conversations with Skeens. And he's been really good. His ERA is still only 362. I don't like some of the, oh, you know, it's over, he's done, he's washed, whatever, that sort of discussion. But yeah, can we admit that something is amiss here? Sure. And maybe I have to walk it back, maybe I was wrong. Um, very possible, but what we're seeing right now is concerning for me. It's concerning for me on a few levels, first and foremost, when Paul Steen starts, the Pirates have to win. They have to take advantage of those. They're not doing that. The ninth straight, they've lost, and there's obviously a lot more that goes into it than just Paul pitching. Um, one play that I circled was when Justin Crawford scored fielder's choice, ball hit to third base, Nick Gonzalez throws home. I mean, that play was mishandled on a few fronts. And Nick Gonzalez has to get an out somewhere. Maybe he throws to first. If he throws home, Henry Davis has to give him a lane, outside, inside, something like that. That's a play the Pirates could have and should have handled better. But when it comes down to it, the Pirates have one of the best pitchers on the planet. And I I mean he's not pitching like it right now. He's pitching well. He's not pitching like one of the best pitchers on the planet, and they're certainly not reaping the benefits of having Paul Skeens on their roster. So I a question I'm asked often, and uh what is wrong with Paul Skeens? Number one. And then the other side of that is how do you fix it? What do you change? So the only thing I can do is give my honest opinion and what I see being around him every day. Um I've said on this podcast before, I'm not terribly concerned about the fastball velocity. That was when it was 97. A couple times tonight we saw a 93, a 94. Wasn't consistently there, but still it was just a hair over 96 miles per hour. I believe it was his lowest average forcing velocity in a start at the major league level. Now it was nasty, it was 96 degrees at first pitch, it was uncomfortable, all of that stuff, but I'm not making excuses for it. It has to be better. Paul Schienes would be the first one to tell you, it has to be better. And the fastball velocity ticking down that much, I mean, you can't tell me that's all intentional. There's something that they need to look into here and figure it out. Is it physical? Is Paul Skeens suffering from something? Is he hiding an injury? I don't get that sense. But I will say from having known Paul now for a couple years now and knowing what he's about and seeing his routine, I do have this wish for him. And I do wish that he would do less. And that is I I say that in a couple different ways. Like on the mound, fewer pitches, go right at guys. Try to pitch less and throw a little bit more. Not all the way there, but I want that mentality that we saw in 24-25, that attacking mentality where he's going right at hitters. He's not dancing around, he's not trying to fool somebody with a sweeper. Reach back and find it. And I wrote in my story at Inside the Pirates, the All-Star Break is coming at a good time. And we'll see the way this shakes out for Skeens. Believe he's scheduled to pitch on Tuesday and then Sunday. If he pitches Sunday, he's not going to be available to pitch in the All-Star game. I wouldn't fault Paul at all if he just didn't go. If he just stayed back, went and found a remote island somewhere, and just disappeared. And remember the idea that I said of just doing less. Um, and it's not a I don't begrudge him for doing, you know, charity, marketing, business, all that stuff outside of baseball. I don't think that's a direct correlation to his performance slipping a little bit. I mean, it might have something to do with it, but overall, what I'm saying is do less. Uh stuff between starts. He is so regimented, he cares so much, he's doing so many things and pushing his body to such an extreme level. Do less. I'd like to see Paul relax a little bit. I'd like to see him get back to being a human being. I know the guy that we saw in 24 and 25 came up here. He thought a little bit, he didn't think a lot. And it wasn't, you know, a big performance for what he was doing. He was just focused on his work. And I want to see that guy come out again. I want to see that guy who was simple. He wasn't thinking about all the extra stuff. He was thinking about how he was going to blow something by somebody. He was the guy stalking around on the mound and providing some sort of intimidation factor. And that guy isn't here right now. Is Paul Skeens, and maybe this is the line that like I know I was catching some stuff on Twitter about, you know, we told you something was wrong. Somebody said I was very condescending on this podcast. What I was trying to say was that I like the numbers on a lot of his pitches, they were st they were fine. Like the velocity was down a little bit, but in the 97 mile hour mile an hour range, it doesn't, I'm not freaked out by it. It doesn't concern me a ton. We go down to 93, 94, 95, and it continues creeping down, that gets a little concerning. It also gets a little concerning seeing some flat breaking balls, seeing breaking stuff left over the middle of the plate, nibbling around the plate, not making pitches when we're used to seeing Paul Skins make pitches. He worked four innings tonight and threw 81 pitches to do it. That's not efficient enough. I remember Paul Skins when he debuted, he's going through. Remember the Cubs game where he's striking out everybody? Pitch count's still low. We're talking about him hanging around. Shoot, he did that earlier this season. Eight innings, talking about why did they pull him? They should have left him in there. Like, I don't think he's just, you know, in a terrible spot where he's broken. But I think it is time that I and a lot of other people, or maybe I I don't know, in Twitter it seems like everybody's admitted this, but you know, maybe just around the team, people around, just do less. Just relax a little bit, be a little bit more of a human, find it again, get away, take the all-star break to take some time for you. That's what I would like to see. I don't know if that's a magic solution. I do know this. The Pirates had an opportunity with Skeens on the Mound opposite Zach Wheeler, and the offense actually did a pretty decent amount. I thought they did a pretty good job staying in this game. Following Skeens, Camp Sanders, Johan Ramirez came in, they kept it close. Dennis Santana gave up two runs in the ninth, but it was a little bit of a ball game for a stretch. It was eight to six at one point, but the Pirates just not able to do it. So, scoring recap, we'll go through that real quick. Crawford, I mentioned that. That was in the bottom of the second. Phillies took a 2-0 lead on that play. Ball hits uh Alec Bohm and bounces away. Uh 5-0 in that same inning after Trey Turner hits a three-run homer that came on an 0-1 sweepers kind of inside. Still not the best pitch Paul has made. Henry Davis Homered in that in this one. Slightly encouraging sign there. He got the Pirates on the board in the top of the third. Brian Reynolds singled in that same inning on a sinker up and away line drive into left field for him. In the bottom of the third, Brandon Marsh answered with the home run off Skeens. That was a slider that was over the middle of the plate. Only went 351, but certainly a pitch that Skeens would want back. The pitch he threw Bryce Harper, this was in the bottom of the fourth. Harper doubled, two-run double to take it up to 8-2. It was a splitter low and away. It was actually a pretty decent pitch, but I think at that point they were kind of on Skeens and going 2-0, obviously putting yourself at a disadvantage. But uh the Pirates did battle back. Nick Gonzalez with a single in the top of the fifth inning. Gonzalez with three hits in this one had a pretty good game offensively. In the top of the sixth, Jared Triolo bases loaded, gets hit by a pitch, and then Triolo, who by the way has actually been pretty good lately, doubles in the top of the seventh, two-run double to make it 8-6 before things got away from the Pirates. Triolo, I know this isn't the big story of the game. The big story of the game is obviously Skeens, but over his past dozen games, Triolo's hitting 297 with an 852 OPS. But again, the larger concern, certainly Paul Skeens, uh his ERA over his past nine starts, 5.36. Absolutely have to get that turned around. He's too important to this team. He's too talented. The Pirates have to figure out a way to fix it. Before the game, we got some news that's pretty neat. Uh Seth Hernandez, Edward Florentino, they were selected to the Major League Baseball All-Star Futures game. That's gonna take place on Sunday. We talked to them on a Zoom call. It was neat. I mean, that's been a proving ground and a stepping stone for recent Pirates prospects. Connor Griffin and Esmerlin Valdez were both there last year. They're with the Major League team now. Bubba Chandler played in that game. It's gonna be fun to watch Seth Hernandez right here at Citizens Bank Park. He's having obviously a fantastic season, 6-1, a 2.02 ERA and 14 starts. And Edward Florentino, he's had a few adjustments to high A, but still a very talented kid. He's ranked number 32 on the MLB pipeline's most recent list. Hernandez is number seven. Actually, it seems like he should be a little bit higher. But Florentino hitting 230 with an 807 OPS in 53 games for Greensboro and Bradenton. He was there for a rehab assignment. Has some speed. He's a left-handed hitting outfielder. He struggled with left-handed pitching this year, but hitting right-handers, he's been really good. And just two quality human beings who will go to that event and represent the Pirates and represent them well. All right, we'll be back at it tomorrow. Jared Jones on the mound for the series finale. Pirates have to get one. They have to split this series before going to Washington. Don't want to lose three or four to the Phillies. This is the Pirates Insider Podcast. Make sure you subscribe. You can get this every day. And uh I will talk to you tomorrow.