Paul Skenes took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his last start, a 10-strikeout masterpiece that headlined a 3-1 win over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday.
The Pittsburgh Pirates ace has strung together back-to-back starts where he’s spun eight innings of shutout ball. Skenes hasn’t walked a batter in more than a month. He’s rounding into peak form, and his Pirates are four games above .500 in mid-May.
Advertisement
But the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner is as modest as ever.
During his latest appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” the right-handed pitcher shared some insight on his pitch selection, infusing some humor along the way.
“I don’t shake a ton,” the soon-to-be 24-year-old said on Thursday. “I’m too stupid to call my own pitches.”
Known for his humility, despite the enormous limelight he lives in, Skenes deflected credit to catcher Henry Davis.
“I just let him do it,” Skenes said. “He’s got my career in his hands every fifth day.”
The Pirates use a trio of backstops, with Davis leading the group. He’s started 26 games. Joey Bart has received the nod 17 times this season. And Endy Rodríguez has started behind the plate once.
Advertisement
“Some teams are doing the from the dugout stuff,” Skenes said, when elaborating on the Pirates’ approach to calling pitches, “but we do it where Henry calls the game, and Joey and Endy and our other catchers — they all call the game for themselves.”
Skenes explained that often there’s no need for conversation between him and Davis. They read and react and typically find themselves on the same page.
“We see how it’s going in the bullpen, we see how it is between innings during the game,” he said on “McAfee.”
“Sometimes a pitch just sucks, so we just stop calling it. Nothing really needs to be said then.”
Davis has an array of pitches to pick from. Skenes’ arsenal features a four-seam fastball, changeup, slider, sinker and splitter. The two-time All-Star began Tuesday’s gem against the Rockies with six consecutive strikeouts. Although Skenes is quick to brush off praise, it’s clear his intuition is a major factor in his prolific performance.
Advertisement
Skenes described how he tinkers with certain pitches over the course of an outing and, more generally, throughout a season.
“We’re constantly working on all of the pitches,” Skenes said. “I might have made some changes to the changeup or my sinker or something else. I think a lot of the time it’s like kind of subconscious of me, where I make changes to the pitch, and it either gets better or worse, and then we either have to fix it or keep riding with it.”
Last season, the LSU product followed up his 2024 NL Rookie of the Year campaign by posting a 1.97 ERA, an MLB-best in 2025. No other qualifying major-league starting pitcher had gone sub-2.00 since Justin Verlander did it with the Houston Astros in 2022.
Advertisement
Skenes got off to a rough start this time around. After pitching for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic, he gave up five runs and lasted only 2/3 of an inning on Opening Day. He’s been solid since.
“I think we’re getting to midseason form,” Skenes said Thursday on “McAfee.”
“I think May is kind of when it all starts to click for me. … I think everybody’s a little bit different. You get feel of pitches, you lose feel of pitches as the season goes on, so stuff that’s working right now probably in all likelihood isn’t going to be working in a month or two. But we’ll figure it out and go from there.”
