Pittsburgh Pirates manager Don Kelly offered a measured update on ace Paul Skenes as the team prepared to open a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night in California.
The Pirates arrived in that matchup after a 4-3 home win over the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday.
Speaking with MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM, Kelly made clear the club is not locking in a rigid plan for its young starter.
“We’re just going to take it start by start and see how he’s doing. He was coming off of five innings and 65 and like you mentioned, he pushed back till the start on Wednesday,” Kelly said. “And I think that we’ll just take it start by start. The other day we were looking at 80 or 85 pitches coming off of 65 and see how we’ll just see how he recovers and how he’s doing, but he felt a lot better on Wednesday in that outing.”
The comments came after Skenes’ most recent appearance, in which his velocity reached 97 mph. That reading stood in contrast to an earlier outing against the Miami Marlins, when his average sat closer to 95. Skenes has typically worked in the upper 90s, so the drop has drawn notice.
Kelly did not dismiss the observation.
“I think that the velo this year has been down and even consistently from the beginning of the season,” Kelly added. “I think that that’s something that you always have to be mindful of and monitor and I think that the main thing is Paul says that he feels good. The main thing is that Paul says he’s good.”
Skenes is in his third major-league season, all of them spent with Pittsburgh. He won the National League Cy Young Award the previous year. This season has been less dominant. Through 26 starts he sits at 9-11 with a 3.95 ERA.
Kelly’s remarks suggest the Pirates are treating each outing as its own data point rather than committing to a predetermined pitch count or rest schedule.
They will watch how Skenes recovers between starts and how he himself reports feeling. That approach reflects both caution after a lighter previous outing and confidence that the pitcher is communicating honestly about his condition.
As the Pirates begin their series against a strong Dodgers club, the organization appears intent on balancing Skenes’ importance to the rotation with a close eye on his health and the velocity trends that have marked the year so far.
The next start will be evaluated on its own terms, just as Kelly described.
