It's Unbelievable To Watch Paul Skenes Dominate Every Start Considering He Was In College This Time A Year Ago

Justin Berl. Getty Images.

Paul Skenes Day has become appointment television whenever he's scheduled to take the bump for the Pirates. At the beginning of every week I check the schedule to get an idea of when I'm going to have to go multiple screens on the Yankees and the Pirates flamethrower. He's that good. 

It's so nice to see a player of his caliber live up to the hype and much more. Yesterday the Pirates ace joined Masahiro Tanaka as the only pitchers in MLB history to have 60+ Ks without recording a loss through their first eight games. Obscure stat no doubt, but it further helps the narrative that Skenes has quickly become one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. He's yet to leave a game while his team is losing. 

On the 98th pitch of his outing on Sunday vs. the Rays he pumped a crisp 102 to end his day. 

What's really nuts is a year ago this dude was at LSU pitching his team into the College Baseball World Series. He wasted zero time transitioning his arsenal to the big league level and maintaining that same Nolan Ryan esque mentality. 

It's only been eight starts, but he's firmly the odds on favorite to win NL Rookie of the Year. He should absolutely be an All Star consideration as well. Hell, if he wanted to start the game for ratings sake I wouldn't have an objection. Let's get nuts and have him vs. Mason Miller to start us off, who gives a fuck? 

And yes, he gets to go home to Livvy Dunne. Yesterday she posted a pic of them floating down the Allegheny River. This is truly a man who has it all. A real life king. 

I keep going back to a hot take Jeff Passan unleashed last month where he said Paul Skenes would be his pitcher right now if he could give the ball to anyone in Game 7 of the World Series. Preposterous, no? While I love Skenes, I think it was outrageous recency bias, especially since he's only a few starts into his career and most teams don't even have a legit scouting report on him. Let him going around the league a few times before we get that ahead of ourselves. A tale as old as time is the league making adjustments on a guy who is setting the world on fire. The real stars are the ones who make adjustments to counter those adjustments. That being said, if he stays healthy and maintains this level of dominance, he's going to quickly be heralded as one of the best pitchers in the game, if not the very best. Right now do I give him the ball in Game 7 over everyone else? Fuck no, but he's probably in the top 10 of guys I would. That's fucking insane considering how early we're into this. 

Another conversation that's going to come up in the next four weeks is how do the Pirates attack this year's trade deadline? You have three legitimate pitchers heading your rotation in Skenes, Jared Jones, and Mitch Keller. Every time those guys take the bump you feel really good about your chances. 

Pittsburgh finds themselves 37-40 right now and just 1.5 games back of the NL's 3rd wild card spot. It's going to be a fucking dog fight the rest of the year in the NL for that spot. We're talking everyone besides the Marlins and Rockies in contention at the moment. Do you go for it? The Pirates need like 2-3 additional hitters minimum to "go for it" and that might not even be enough. They can't hit for shit, but man can they pitch with those horses at the top. I feel like they probably stay pat in year one of this wave, but there's absolutely hope on the horizon with these arms. Pirates fans are buzzing and they deserve it. Some of the best fans in the game if you just give them something to root for. Paul Skenes has brought legitimate excitement in less than half a season into the bigs. The man is special. During that Cubs start back in May I felt like I was witnessing a moment right in front of me. That's the vibe for a bunch of his starts and it's awesome. 

P.S. The Pirates yesterday showed Major League Baseball's biggest flaw —marketing. You have Skenes going seven innings of one run ball in front of an electric crowd, punching out eight. Final pitcher a 102 fireball past the hitter Jackson. Zero tweets about it. They tweeted out the lineup, Bednar going on the IL, Bryan Reynolds solo shot, and then the final score before calling it a day. I know you lost, but you have to do more than that. Grow the game! You have a Lamborghini and are leaving it parked out back under a tree. Show it off to the world! We should be complaining about how much they're shoving him down our throat. They'd be more than in their right to go down that path. Instead, nothing. One TikTok post, one Instagram post, zero tweets. Outrageous.