{"id":97526,"date":"2025-03-15T12:23:57","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T16:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=97526"},"modified":"2025-03-15T12:23:57","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T16:23:57","slug":"pirates-skenes-opening-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/15\/pirates-skenes-opening-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Name Opening Day Starter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have announced that pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/skenepa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-03-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul Skenes<\/a>, last year\u2019s rookie sensation, will be their Opening Day starter. Once again, the Pirates open the 2025 season in Miami against the Marlins.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The moment Paul Skenes found out he was starting on Opening Day. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/xLJUjPKpgY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/xLJUjPKpgY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates\/status\/1900898207044907484?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 15, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-media-max-width=\"560\"><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h3><strong>Skenes Named Pirates Opening Day Starter<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>That Skenes would be accorded this honor should surprise nobody. Although the right-hander was a finalist for the National League <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/y\/youngcy01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-03-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cy Young<\/a> Award and fell short in 2024, one can still argue that he was the best pitcher in baseball. He won the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/11\/18\/paul-skenes-luis-gil-2024-rookie-of-the-year\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">NL Rookie of the Year Award<\/a> when he went 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA and 0.947 WHIP while striking out 170 batters in 133 innings. His record should have been far better. He had five no-decisions where he pitched at least six innings and gave up one earned run or less. It was a whirlwind year that saw Skenes start for the Pirates in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/03\/13\/pirates-spring-breakout-game-prospects\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Spring Breakout Game<\/a>. Four months later, he was starting for the NL in the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/12\/pirates-skenes-starting-all-star-game\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">All-Star Game<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Skenes, the 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick, relied mainly on a four-seam fastball that averaged 98.8 mph and often topped out at 100, placing him in the 100th percentile among starting pitchers in terms of velocity. His repertoire also included a sinker, slider, curveball, and the occasional changeup and sweeper.<\/p>\n<p>Opposing hitters in 2025 will notice something different about Skenes, and it won\u2019t be just the new beard he\u2019s rocking. He\u2019s added a two-seam fastball and a cutter to his toolbox. As if he needs them! So far in the exhibition games, he\u2019s given up four runs, 12 hits, and five walks in 10 innings. But he\u2019s also struck out 12. Despite the uncharacteristic spring numbers, nobody expects that a sophomore jinx is in his future.<\/p>\n<p>When Skenes got the news about his Opening Day start, he reacted in typical low-key fashion. He could join former Pirate <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/moranco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-03-15_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Colin Moran<\/a> as a member of the Pirates All-Time Blas\u00e9 Team.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credits: Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates have announced that pitcher Paul Skenes, last year\u2019s rookie sensation, will be their Opening Day starter. Once again, the Pirates open the 2025 season in Miami against the Marlins. &nbsp; The moment Paul Skenes found out he was starting on Opening Day. pic.twitter.com\/xLJUjPKpgY \u2014 Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 15, 2025 &nbsp; Skenes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":97543,"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],"tags":[1861,6371],"class_list":["post-97526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","tag-colin-moran","tag-paul-skenes"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97526","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=97526"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97545,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97526\/revisions\/97545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}