{"id":79828,"date":"2024-07-12T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T17:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=79828"},"modified":"2024-07-12T13:01:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T17:01:18","slug":"pirates-skenes-starting-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/12\/pirates-skenes-starting-all-star-game\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Rookie Sensation Pitcher Named To Start All-Star Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pittsburgh Pirates rookie pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/skenepa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Skenes<\/a> has been named to start Tuesday\u2019s All-Star Game for the National League. Skenes\u2019s mound exploits have captivated the nation after just 11 major league games.<\/p>\n<h2>Pirates Rookie Sensation Pitcher Named To Start All-Star Game<\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">WARNING: A heat wave is about to hit Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Paul Skenes has been named the starting pitcher for the National League at the All-Star Game \ud83d\udc4f <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wjOKiloWOm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/wjOKiloWOm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/1811786318034112879?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 12, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3>Paul Skenes Starting The All-Star Game<\/h3>\n<p>Skenes will become only the fifth rookie pitcher ever to start an All-Star Game. He\u2019ll be the first Pirates pitcher to start the All-Star Game since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/reuscri01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rick Reuschel<\/a> in 1987.<\/p>\n<p>No rookie pitcher has generated this much buzz throughout baseball since <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/valenfe01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-07-12_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fernando Valenzuela<\/a> in 1981. Valenzuela started the All-Star Game that year. But that game was the resumption of the season after a mid-season baseball strike that soured much of the public on the game. This will be different. An All-Star Game with Skenes starting just might generate the highest TV ratings ever for the game.<\/p>\n<p>As every astute baseball fan knows, Skenes was the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/06\/03\/paul-skenes-2023-mlb-draft-profile\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">No.1 overall pick<\/a> in the 2023 June Amateur Draft. Skenes had pitched Louisiana State University to the 2023 College World Series championship. In 19 games for LSU, covering 122 2\/3 innings, he was 13-2 with a 1.69 ERA, 0.750 WHIP, 209 strikeouts, and 20 walks. That\u2019s 15.3 strikeouts per nine innings and a 10.45 strikeout-to-walk ratio.<\/p>\n<h3>A Highly Anticipated Start<\/h3>\n<p>Pirates fans impatient for his debut were rewarded when he was called up to start on May 11. Since his call-up, all he\u2019s done is register a 6-0 record with a 1.90 ERA, 0.920 WHIP, and 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings in 11 starts. He\u2019s pitched well enough to be 11-0. Twice he\u2019s been removed from games with a no-hitter. The first time was in his second major league start when he no-hit the Chicago Cubs through six innings. On Thursday, he no-hit the Milwaukee Brewers through seven innings. With a fastball that\u2019s been clocked as high as 102 mph, he\u2019s become one of the biggest gate attractions in baseball. He\u2019ll give a boost to an attraction that in recent years has become <a href=\"https:\/\/throughthefencebaseball.com\/the-mlb-all-star-game-aint-what-it-was\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">more of a players\u2019 vacation\/lovefest<\/a> than a highly anticipated competition. We\u2019ll see whether Skenes can add another <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/12\/pirates-all-star-game-memories\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">memorable performance<\/a> for the Pirates in the All-Star Game.<\/p>\n<p>The American League has not yet named his mound opponent or the batting order Skenes will be facing.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: <em>Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pittsburgh Pirates rookie pitcher Paul Skenes has been named to start Tuesday\u2019s All-Star Game for the National League. Skenes\u2019s mound exploits have captivated the nation after just 11 major league games. Pirates Rookie Sensation Pitcher Named To Start All-Star Game &nbsp; WARNING: A heat wave is about to hit Texas. Paul Skenes has been named [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":79835,"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],"tags":[5371,6371,5503],"class_list":["post-79828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","tag-fernando-valenzuela","tag-paul-skenes","tag-rick-reuschel"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79828","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=79828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}