Pittsburgh Pirates right-handed prospect Paul Skenes had his season-opening scoreless streak dashed on Wednesday as he set a new career-high in innings pitched.
Skenes, the No. 1 pick in last summer's draft, took the ball against the Omaha Storm Chasers, the Triple-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals. He worked 4 1/3 innings, allowing two runs (only one earned) on five hits and a walk. He struck out seven of the 19 batters he faced and did so on 71 pitches.
The 21-year-old pitcher entered Wednesday having not surrendered a run over the course of his first four starts. The Pirates have increased his workload in a conservative manner, meaning that his streak encompassed just 12 2/3 innings.
Prior to Wednesday's start, Skenes had not worked into the fifth inning as a professional. He also had not cleared the 70-pitch threshold. Instead, Skenes had topped out at 65 offerings, with that coming his last time out.
According to ball-tracking data, Skenes on the season has thrown his fastball 100 mph on average. He's continued to deploy his swing-and-miss slider, and he's introduced a 95 mph sinker with a movement profile that has led to some labeling it a splitter or a splitter-sinker hybrid -- a "splinker," à la Minnesota Twins reliever Jhoan Duran.
It's unclear when, precisely, Skenes will be brought to the majors. It does stand to reason that the time is drawing ever nearer with every pitch-count expansion. Pirates general manager Ben Cherington was asked on Wednesday afternoon if he had a pitch-count goal in mind for Skenes that would prompt his promotion. "No, and if we did we probably wouldn't share it publicly," he told Alex Stumpf of MLB.com. "It will need to be higher than 45 or wherever he was a couple of weeks ago. He's starting to build now."
Our Matt Snyder spoke with Skenes last week about a variety of topics, including his workload.
"That's obviously the goal, so I'm just trying to do whatever I need to do here to be prepared to succeed up there," Skenes told CBS Sports about his impending promotion.
Skenes added, when asked if he was getting antsy about being close but not there yet: "A little bit. But it just comes down to executing."
The Pirates entered Wednesday with a 13-11 record on the young season.
