Curt Schilling, the former Boston Red Sox ace and three-time World Series champion, says he saw trouble coming for Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes long before the right-hander’s latest rough stretch.
Skenes left Tuesday’s game against the Miami Marlins after only 65 pitches and never reached 97 mph on the radar gun. The 24-year-old allowed two runs, one of them earned, on five hits and one walk while striking out four over five innings. Pittsburgh lost 2-0.
The early exit marked one of the shortest outings of Skenes’ season. His fastball averaged 95.7 mph, a career low for a start, and sat more than a full mile per hour below his 2026 season average of roughly 96.8 mph. That mark itself is down from 98.1 mph last year and 98.8 mph during his 2024 rookie campaign.
Skenes is now 9-11 with a 3.88 ERA across 25 starts and 134 2/3 innings. He has struck out 166 batters while posting a 1.12 WHIP. Those numbers represent a clear step back from the sub-2.00 ERAs he posted in each of his first two major league seasons, when he finished 11-3 and 10-10 and captured the National League Cy Young Award in 2025.
He has not turned in a start without allowing at least one earned run since May 12. Over his last nine outings he is 3-4 with a 5.79 ERA. In the 15 starts leading into Tuesday, that figure sat near 5.20.
Schilling took to social media Wednesday to address the questions swirling around the young star.
“The Athletic has an article asking what’s wrong with Paul Skenes. Go back and check my social media BEFORE the WBC, and then the posts regarding his mechanics,” Schilling said. “I am not Carnac, I just did his job for a living and have studied it my entire life. This was predictable, and I predicted it.”
The Hall of Fame candidate had raised the same concerns in August 2025, well before the World Baseball Classic.
“Might be the worst take in history of a delivery. Paul Skenes is a max effort thrower. ‘Effortless without much strain?’ Hate to be harsh but that was spoken as if you’ve never thrown a ball or don’t play the sport,” he said at the time.
Schilling followed up then by noting, “Skenes mechanics will make it very hard for him to take on that workload unless he can tone down the effort. He won’t LOSE anything, but will gain long term benefits.”
Pirates manager Don Kelly insisted after Tuesday’s game that the early removal was not injury-related. He said the decision simply gave the team its best chance to win that night and provided the pitcher a bit of extra rest. Skenes has logged fewer innings than many expected at this stage of the year, yet the velocity dip and rising ERA have fueled growing speculation about his long-term durability.
Asked whether he was surprised by the quick hook despite the reduced velocity, Skenes told reporters, “Not really.” He added, “If I were the manager, I’d probably do it too. … Wish I could have gone more, but it is what it is.”
Skenes has repeatedly said the lower velocity is intentional and that he is healthy. Still, the results tell a different story. In 2024 he touched 100 mph in nearly every start. Last season he still regularly hit 99 mph. This year he has reached 99 mph on only three pitches total.
His career record now stands at 30-24 with a 2.53 ERA over 80 starts and 455 1/3 innings. The strikeout rate remains strong at more than 11 per nine innings this season, but command and the ability to miss bats have slipped. Tuesday’s 12 percent whiff rate was the lowest of his career in a start of that length.
The Pirates sit several games out of a National League wild-card berth and have struggled to generate offense in recent weeks. Skenes remains their clear ace, yet the combination of mechanical questions raised by Schilling, the velocity drop, and the early exits has left observers wondering how the rest of the season will unfold for one of baseball’s brightest young arms.
