Paul Skenes Has Thrown 95 Fastballs Over 98 MPH This Year. Two Seasons Ago It Was 900.

PITTSBURGH — The number that has Pirates fans genuinely worried is not the ERA. It is 95.

That is how many fastballs Paul Skenes has thrown above 98 mph this season. In 2024 the figure was roughly 900. Last year it was about 700. The pitch that made him the most exciting arm in baseball has, for practical purposes, stopped showing up.

Skenes says that is intentional. "It's been by design. It's nothing I've been worried about," he told reporters when asked about the drop.

The month that raised the question

Friday night in Cincinnati, Skenes gave up five runs on seven hits and did not finish the fifth inning. It was his second consecutive start surrendering five or more, and the third such outing in five July starts.

The season totals have moved with it. His ERA now sits at 3.90, up from the sub-2.00 territory he lived in across his first two years. He has allowed 54 earned runs in 23 starts — more than the 41 he gave up in all of last season, with two months still to play.

Pirates pre- and post-game host Dan Zangrilli did not soften it: "The ace didn't ace. Far more questions than answers. For any of this to work, he has to. He looks like an out of shape, lumbering yeti sucking wind on a hot day."

The charitable reading

There is a real version of the "by design" argument. Pitchers who live at 100 mph get hurt, and organizations have spent the last decade learning that lesson expensively. Trading velocity for command and a longer career is a defensible trade, and at 24 Skenes has a lot of career left to protect.

An American League scout who has seen him three times this season put it more carefully to Idiocracy News: "If you're dialing back on purpose, the walks go down and the innings go up. His didn't. That's the part that doesn't fit the story."

What it means for Pittsburgh

The Pirates have built the front half of a decade around this player. A franchise in a small market gets one of these every twenty years, and the plan only works if the arm holds.

That is why the phrasing matters. "By design" is what a team says when it is managing an asset. It is also what a team says when it is not ready to say the other thing.

What's next

Skenes' next start comes on regular rest. The things to watch are not the runs — those bounce around — but the radar gun in the first inning and whether the fastball is still there in the sixth.

If the velocity comes back in September, this was a plan. If it doesn't, Pittsburgh has a much longer winter to think about.