The Pittsburgh Pirates will suffer their seventh consecutive losing season in 2025, but at least they have one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball leading their starting rotation.
Paul Skenes eclipsed 200 strikeouts in a season for the first time in his young career on September 10 against the Baltimore Orioles. Pirates manager Don Kelly removed Skenes from the game after he threw just 64 pitches in five scoreless innings in the Pirates’ 2-1 10-inning loss. The 23-year-old struck out eight batters and allowed just two hits.
With the Pirates out of contention, Kelly decided to remove Skenes from the game earlier than usual, but the decision did not seem to bother last year’s National League Rookie of the Year.
Why Don Kelly Decided to Take Out Pirates Star
Clearly, the Pirates have their sights set on the 2026 season and will be careful in making sure that Skenes, the leading candidate for this year’s NL Cy Young Award, is healthy for next year.
“Like we’ve talked about with all the guys,” Kelly told reporters after the game, including the Associated Press. “Just trying to make sure that we’re managing their workload, make sure that they’re going all the way through the end of the season healthy and ready to finish a full season and be ready for next year.”
Skenes’ five scoreless innings against the Orioles on Wednesday lowered his season ERA to 1.92, an MLB-low. He leads the NL with 203 strikeouts and a 0.92 WHIP, and also leads MLB with a 224 ERA+.
The Pirates star did not argue with his manager, Kelly, regarding the decision to pull him from his start on Wednesday early, saying one of his goals as a Major League pitcher is to make all of his scheduled starts.
“The main goal that I’ve had coming into the past two years is making every start,” Skenes told reporters after the game. “There are opportunities to give and take throughout the season, and tonight was kind of one of those. I probably needed it, to be honest.”
Will Paul Skenes Win His First Cy Young?
It appears that the Pirates will manage Skenes’ workload moving forward, as he’s already thrown 178 innings in 2025, 17.2 more than he threw between Triple-A Indianapolis and MLB in 2024.
Regardless, his performance on the mound this season places him as the frontrunner for this year’s NL Cy Young Award. Making just 23 starts, he finished third in Cy Young voting last season behind Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves.
His competition for this year included Wheeler, who underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot in August and will miss the remainder of the regular season and playoffs. Otherwise, names to keep tabs on are Cristopher Sanchez of the Phillies and Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Sanchez’s 2.57 ERA is tied for the fourth best in MLB with Garret Crochet of the Boston Red Sox, and Yamamoto is pitching like an ace for the Dodgers, averaging 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings with one earned run or fewer allowed in 15 of his 27 starts.
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