Pirates' Paul Skenes Excels in One Key Area vs. Angels
In this story:
PITTSBURGH — Paul Skenes hasn't had the season the Pittsburgh Pirates expected, but he's still finding ways to succeed despite it.
Skenes had one of his better starts recently, throwing 5.1 scoreless innings in the 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Angels in the series finale at PNC Park on Sept. 6.
It wasn't Skenes' most dominant outing, with just two strikeouts over 87 pitches, but he also allowed just four hits and a walk.
Skenes also made one big improvement against the Angels, one that could help him for the rest of 2026.
Cutting Down Hard Contact Leads to Success for Skenes
One area where Skenes has struggled this season is allowing hard contact, or batted-ball events with exit velocities of 95 mph or higher.
Skenes has posted a hard-hit rate of 39.1%, ranking 198th of 349 MLB-qualified pitchers, per Statcast, or in the 53rd percentile.
It's not entirely different from the first two seasons of his career: a 40.1% hard-hit rate in 2025, when he won the National League Cy Young Award, and 36.3% in 2024, when he won the Rookie of the Year Award.
Skenes had great success against the Angels, with just three hard-hits on 17 batted ball events, 17.6%, his second-lowest mark since his slump started on May 17.
One pitch opposing hitters have hit is his four-seam fastball, 47.0% hard-hit rate, including four hard hits and a three-run home run to San Francisco Giants first baseman Rafael Devers at PNC Park on Sept. 1.
Skenes limited it to one hard-hit ball vs. the Angels on four batted-ball events and didn't give up a single hit on his fastball.
“I thought it was pretty good," Skenes said on his outing. "I got ahead of a lot of guys, a lot of weak contact. I executed pitches when I needed to. Guys made some plays. It was pretty good all around."
Skenes Still Aiming For Improvement
This was a much better outing for Skenes, especially after he gave up five runs to the Giants, but he's always finding ways to get better.
Skenes still struggled with two-strike counts, throwing 43 of his 87 pitches on those counts, while only posting two strikeouts and giving up three hits.
“They were able to touch them," Skenes said on the two-strike counts. "It was frustrating at times, but they did a good job at not striking out. There were a lot of pitches that I executed that got a ground ball or some bad on it. You kind of just have to tip your cap.”
Skenes still had a solid outing regardless and credited the defense with coming through for him when he needed it.
“If balls were landing, it would probably be a little bit harder, but they weren’t really landing," Skenes said. "They were making plays behind me. An out is an out, strikeouts are a little cooler than a groundball somewhere, but at the end of the day, an out is an out. Just got to take it and move on to the next guy.”
Add us as a preferred source on Google
Dominic writes for Pittsburgh Pirates On SI, Pittsburgh Panthers Pn SI and also, Pittsburgh Steelers On SI. A Pittsburgh native, Dominic grew up watching Pittsburgh Sports and wrote for The Pitt News as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, covering Pitt Athletics. He would write for Pittsburgh Sports Now after college and has years of experience covering sports across Pittsburgh.