Paul Skenes Has Uncomfortably Transformed Into a Pitching Craftsman

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Pirates righthander Paul Skenes on Sunday won for the first time in eight starts, stopping a drought in which he was 5–3 with a 5.77 ERA. His start against the Angels was not vintage Skenes, however. He did throw shutout ball but departed one out into the fifth inning and with only two strikeouts, tying a career low for any start of one inning or more.

Skenes hit 98 mph twice, which doesn’t sound impressive for someone who did it 20 times in an April start. But the good news is that it marks the first time since June he reached 98 mph in three consecutive starts. His four-seam fastball averaged 96.7 mph, the lowest in his past four starts.

What the start against the Angels continues to prove is that Skenes out of necessity has been transitioning from an elite power pitcher into a craftsman who must make do without the same swing-and-miss stuff. Here’s what we know about Skenes:

Without an elite four-seam fastball, he is becoming a sinker-heavy pitcher. Over his past three starts, Skenes has thrown 24.2% sinkers, more than double his previous rate this year (10.5%). He is more Hunter Brown than Jacob Misiorowski.
His whiff rate this month is 18.7%, the worst of any month in his career and down from 33.6% as recently as June.
He has returned to his usual crossfire stride in his past five starts after unsuccessfully grinding through 11 starts (3–5, 5.28) with a neutral stride, which is when his slump deepened.

2026 Time Period	Skenes Horizontal Release Point
First 13 Starts	-2.54'
Next 11 Starts	-2.16'
Past 5 Starts	-2.73'

The Pirates are lightening his workload. In six starts in August and September, Skenes is averaging only 21 batters faced and 86 pitches.
He has lost the feel for his splitter. Skenes averaged 18 splitters a game in 2024–25. It’s down to 9.8 per game this season. The last time he struck out a batter on a splitter was June 3. His off-speed run value (splitters and changeups) has cratered from the 98th percentile last year to 6th this year.
The four-seam fastball has just its juice. Even on his best days, Skenes’s four-seamer has less spin and less induced vertical break than an average heater. A fastball with below-average properties is much more gettable when it is sitting at 96–97 mph rather than the 98–99 mph we saw from peak Skenes.

Four-Seam FB Comparison	MPH	RPM	Induced Vertical Break	Hard Hit%
Skenes	96.9	2,171	13.0	46.5%
Average MLB Pitcher	94.8	2,314	15.6	44.8%

Skenes for some reason has lost the ability to dial up elite velocity when he needs it.

Paul Skenes pitchers 98+ mph by month — MLB

Skenes has two more starts—three if he pitches the final weekend of the season. After that, he will need to step back and assess what happened to his velocity and how his pitch mix could be tweaked.

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