{"id":71097,"date":"2024-04-22T15:49:42","date_gmt":"2024-04-22T19:49:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=71097"},"modified":"2024-04-22T15:50:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T19:50:51","slug":"rumor-pirates-promote-skenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/22\/rumor-pirates-promote-skenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Rumor: Pirates to Promote Top Prospect Soon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past weekend the rumor surfaced that the Pittsburgh Pirates soon will promote <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/02\/22\/pirates-top-prospects\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">top prospect<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=skenes000pau&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Skenes<\/a> to the big club. It\u2019s the news Pirates fans \u2013 indeed, all baseball fans \u2013 have been waiting for. It was first mentioned, rather casually, on the Pirates\u2019 telecast on Friday. It has since been repeated in the local papers. (Or what passes for local \u201cpapers.\u201d They\u2019re mostly digital now.)<\/p>\n<p>For the benefit of those readers who have been living under a rock since last summer, Skenes was the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/03\/paul-skenes-2023-mlb-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Pirates\u2019 No. 1 draft pick<\/a>, and the first pick overall, in the 2023 MLB June Amateur Draft. The six-foot-six, 235-pound right-hander was said to be the best pitching prospect since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/strasst01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Strasburg<\/a> in 2009. Pitching for the 2023 College World Series winner Louisiana State University, he had a season for the ages. In 19 games covering 122 2\/3 innings, he was 13-2 with a 1.69 ERA, 0.750 WHIP, 209 strikeouts, and 20 walks. Doing the math, that\u2019s 15.3 strikeouts per nine innings and a 10.45 strikeout-to-walk ratio. His fastball has been clocked as high as 102 mph.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Paul Skenes has struck out 27 batters in under 13 innings of AAA work this season \ud83e\udd2f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jonmorosi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@jonmorosi<\/a> has the latest on the #1 overall pick and his timeline for a potential call-up. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EIHaxIcZIa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/EIHaxIcZIa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLBNetwork\/status\/1781412955260653686?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 19, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Rumor: Pirates to Promote Skenes Soon<\/h2>\n<h3>Coming Soon to a Ballpark Near You<\/h3>\n<p>The rumor is that the Pirates will promote Skenes after he makes three more starts in Triple-A. The Pirates themselves have been silent regarding any timetable for Skenes\u2019 arrival in Pittsburgh. It\u2019s unknown whether they even had a date in mind or are playing it by ear. They\u2019ve spoken only of a plan to gradually build up his innings and pitch count. However, it\u2019s reached the point where he has nothing more to prove in the minors. Opposing hitters would likely testify that he\u2019s looked plenty \u201cbuilt up\u201d from their vantage point.<br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KSayoP0dUVk?si=M8xxDOA6-0lLUzaG\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn four starts with the Indianapolis Indians covering just 12 2\/3 innings, Skenes has yet to give up a run. He\u2019s struck out an astounding 27 of 47 batters faced. That translates to 19.2 strikeouts per nine. So far, the biggest mystery is how he\u2019s managed to give up five hits.<\/p>\n<h3>&#8220;I Wasn&#8217;t Happy&#8221;<\/h3>\n<p>As one might expect, Skenes is a competitor. While seeming to understand the program, he dislikes coming out of games because of a pitch limit when he\u2019s winning. In his most recent start against the St. Paul Saints, Skenes struck out eight, including former major leaguer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kempto01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tony Kemp<\/a>, in 3 1\/3 innings before he was removed by Indians manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=perezmi02,perez-014mig,perez-009mig,perez-013mig&amp;search=Miguel+Perez&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-04-22_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Miguel Perez<\/a>. By then Skenes had thrown just 65 pitches, 34 of which exceeded 100 mph. Skenes admitted to Sam Dykstra of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">MLB.com<\/a>, \u201cI wasn\u2019t happy. But it\u2019s over (Perez\u2019s) head. It\u2019s over my head.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>When the rumor becomes reality and the Pirates promote Skenes, it will liven up a fan base \u2013 and perhaps a team \u2013 demoralized by the Bucs\u2019 present six-game losing streak. Of course, the big issue behind these recent losses has been a lack of offense. Skenes won\u2019t help there. (Although he <em>could<\/em>. He was also used as a catcher and designated hitter in college, where he hit .367\/.453\/.669 with 24 HR and 81 RBI in 341 at-bats.)<\/p>\n<p>An interesting sidelight is the fact that his girlfriend is gymnast Livvy Dunne, internet sensation and the NCAA\u2019s top NIL earner. The Pirates should hope that the story of their romance becomes as wearisome to the sports public as that of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. That will mean Skenes and the Pirates have become regulars in that annual prime-time drama known as the baseball postseason.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This past weekend the rumor surfaced that the Pittsburgh Pirates soon will promote top prospect Paul Skenes to the big club. It\u2019s the news Pirates fans \u2013 indeed, all baseball fans \u2013 have been waiting for. It was first mentioned, rather casually, on the Pirates\u2019 telecast on Friday. It has since been repeated in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":71125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071,35],"tags":[6371,270,2316],"class_list":["post-71097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-paul-skenes","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tony-kemp"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}