The Worst Start of Paul Skenes’ Career

NEW YORK — It started out so well.

In their Opening Day game against the Mets at Citi Field, the Pirates jumped out to a two-run lead two batters into the game. Their next three batters struck out, but they had National League Cy Young winner Paul Skenes starting for them. It was the first time in his career that Skenes, who entered the game with a 1.96 ERA, took the mound in the first inning with a lead of two or more runs. Heck, it was just the fourth time in his 56 career starts (29 on the road) that he’d thrown his first pitch with any lead at all. Maybe this year would be different after all.

It’s too early to say anything about this year, but this sure was a different game. Just not in the way the Pirates had hoped. For the first time in his career, Skenes did not make it through the first inning. When manager Don Kelly went to the bullpen with two outs in the inning, his ace had thrown 37 pitches, recorded just two outs and allowed five runs. He struck out just one batter, walked two, and hit one with a pitch. The impromptu bullpen game ended about two and a half hours later in an 11-7 Mets win.

Skenes called his performance “a little frustrating,” but he also said, “I’m not as upset about this for me personally as people would probably think. They did a really good job. It was an abnormal outing.”

Abnormal is an apt description of what went down here on Thursday. Skenes did not pitch well; he lacked his typical command of his fastball, and his secondaries weren’t sharp. His first three pitches were balls. He didn’t get a whiff until his 20th pitch, and he didn’t get his second one until his 30th. But he also didn’t get shelled. Kelly went to his bullpen when he did not because he thought Skenes couldn’t get out of the inning, but because the most important player on his team was pushing 40 pitches in an inning before the beginning of April.

But for as much as Skenes struggled, his final line makes it look like he pitched much worse than he actually did. None of the balls put in play against him registered as hard hit; one was an unexpected bunt single by cleanup hitter Jorge Polanco in his first plate appearance with the Mets. Skenes was most upset that he walked leadoff batter Francisco Lindor to set up the big inning. Lindor advanced to third on Soto’s single to center (83.3 mph exit velocity), then scored on Bo Bichette’s fly out to right. Skenes was a double play ball from getting out of the inning with the lead, even after Polanco reached.

That brought up Luis Robert Jr., who has been one of the best underwhelming players in baseball over the last two years. Despite his MVP skill set, he’s put up just 1.8 WAR with an 84 wRC+ since the start of 2024. Skenes started him off with a slider that Robert swung through, then missed low and away with a sweeper. He followed up with another one. Robert fouled it off to fall behind 1-2. He then fouled off the next three pitches — four-seamer, slider, four-seamer — before Skenes spiked a sweeper for ball two. Robert fouled off the eighth pitch, a sinker. Skenes went to his changeup, which he bounced in front of home plate for ball three. He went back to the slider. It glided across the plate and missed a bit off the plate for a walk.

Robert had a 36.6% chase rate against sliders, including sweepers, last year, and a 56.3% whiff rate on those chases. Opposing batters chased 25.4% of Skenes’ sliders and sweepers last season, whiffing on 53.3% of those swings. When Robert of all people spits on a slider just off the corner to work a 10-pitch walk, it isn’t your day.

“One, they got to a couple balls that I thought I did execute,” Skenes said when asked about his inability to put away hitters with two strikes. “And two, there were a couple balls that I didn’t execute that they either took or fouled off.”

But even then, Skenes still could’ve gotten out of the inning with minimal damage. He got Brett Baty to swing over a nasty first-pitch changeup. He went back to the changeup, but this one was just above the knees and out over the plate. Baty lined it to center for what should have been a game-tying sacrifice fly. Instead, center fielder Oneil Cruz completely misplayed it. He hesitated, then crashed hard, realized it was over his head and then, finally, turned and broke backward. It rolled to the wall. He bobbled the carom, then threw it to cutoff man, Jared Triolo.

The mistakes compounded from there, as Triolo turned and relayed home to try and get Robert, even though he had no play. Robert, whose sprint speed was in the 90th percentile last year, got a great jump off first upon seeing Cruz get turned around. Baty, meanwhile, was only a few steps past second base. First baseman Spencer Horwitz saw this and signaled for the throw to go to third. Had Triolo done that, Baty would’ve been toast. The Mets still would’ve cleared the bases and taken a 4-2 lead, but Skenes would’ve had two outs and nobody on with the bottom of the order due up. Instead, there was a runner on third with one out.

The next batter, Marcus Semien, lifted a routine fly ball to center field that Cruz lost in the sun. It plopped to the ground about an arm’s length away from him. Hustling all the way, Semien made it to second with what was officially scored as a double.

Cruz is now beginning his second full season in center field after shifting there from shortstop in August 2024. He led all center fielders last year with 11 errors. He was worth -14 Defensive Runs Saved, though he did get better as the season went on, and by FRV, he was actually +4 runs because of his arm. There was hope that this super athlete would figure things out with more reps.

“He’s gotta keep working,” Kelly said of Cruz. “That ball straight at him, came in, got a bad read. He’s been working hard out there. He just needs to continue to get better. Then the one in the sun, just lost it in the sun.”

The first one was a tougher play; it should’ve been caught, but it can be difficult to judge whether line drives hit directly at center fielders are going to sail overhead or drop in front. But losing the ball in the sun was preventable. He was not wearing sunglasses. When asked why Cruz didn’t have his shades on, Kelly said diplomatically, “Yeah, we need to make sure that we’re prepared right there.”

Skenes had maybe his worst stuff ever, yet if he had had even an average center fielder behind him, he likely would’ve escaped the inning with just two runs allowed and the game tied.

He tried not to put the blame on Cruz, but he also didn’t shoulder it all himself.

“You gotta look at it for what it is,” Skenes said. “There wasn’t a ton of hard contact. Leadoff walk is not great. But yeah, some balls landed that, err, you know, the Polanco groundball. Stuff like that. It’s like the batting average on balls in play thing was super high today. That’ll go down as the season goes on.”

That’s true; the BABIP gods will surely be in Skenes’ favor as the season goes on. But also, the Pirates defense was disastrous beyond just Cruz. Catcher Henry Davis clanked a slider that might’ve clipped the zone had he caught it; instead, Yohan Ramírez’s first pitch in relief of Skenes went to the backstop for a passed ball. With one out in the third, Semien lined a ball back up the box that deflected off Ramírez’s glove; that wouldn’t have been a problem, except the pitcher picked it up, twirled, and threw wide to first, allowing Semien to advance to second. Then, as part of the Mets’ three-run fifth inning, reliever Isaac Mattson — who’d already walked two batters, including one with the bases loaded — got Robert to tap a soft grounder to the Bermuda Triangle between the mound, first and second base. Mattson initially went for and missed it before heading to the bag; that slight delay prevented him from getting to the base in time to receive the throw from Horwitz.

It wasn’t all bad for the Pirates. Their offense, which has been their biggest weakness for years, kept scoring, even as the Mets pulled away in the later innings. Brandon Lowe, acquired from the Rays in a three-team trade in December, became the first Pirates player since Garrett Jones in 2010 to hit two home runs on Opening Day. The first was the most popup-to-first-base home run since they stopped playing games at the Polo Grounds. It had a 47-degree launch angle and somehow carried into the pocket corner just beyond the right field wall. With two outs in the third inning, he clobbered a solo shot to center field to bring Pittsburgh within two. Ryan O’Hearn, another offseason addition, lifted an opposite-field home run in the sixth.

Even when they were trailing by six runs in the ninth, the Pirates put together a rally. They plated two runs with one out, forcing Mets manager Carlos Mendoza to get closer Devin Williams up in the bullpen. Pittsburgh’s offense registered 12 hard-hit balls in the game, double New York’s total.

In the end, of course, the story of this game is Skenes. It was the shortest outing of his career. It was abnormal for Skenes, but the Pirates are hoping that at least some of their Opening Day performance sticks. Perhaps we’ll look back in 161 games to see that those three homers and seven runs marked the start of a new normal.