The Pittsburgh Pirates might have a Paul Skenes problem.
Thanks to their 10-6 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday night, the Pirates have now lost nine consecutive Skenes starts and are only 6-12 in the 18 games he has started this season.
Perhaps even more astonishing is the fact that they are significantly better (37-32) in the games he does not start.
Over the first two years of his career, and even through his first 10 starts this season, it would have been easy to write that off as the Pirates not doing enough to help him. At times, that has been the case. But it is reaching a point now where Skenes has to start owning not only some of that failure, but the majority of it.
Something is very, very wrong with him.
Something looks broken.
Paul Skenes is simply not pitching well right now
Skenes was lifted after just four innings on Wednesday night, allowing eight runs, including seven earned, to raise his ERA for the season to 3.62.
While a 3.62 ERA might be a perfectly acceptable number for 90 to 95% of the pitchers in Major League Baseball, Skenes has set a significantly higher standard for himself and entered this season with a 1.98 ERA over his first two seasons in the league.
Even through the first quarter of this season, he was under 2.00 and looking as dominant as ever.
But sometime around mid-May, everything dramatically changed for him, and he has not yet been able to get himself back on track.
During the team’s nine-game losing streak in his starts, Skenes has an ERA of 5.44 and has not looked anything close to dominant. Even worse, even in the starts where he hasn’t given up a lot of runs, everything has looked to be a chore for him on the mound.
Much has been made about a drop in his fastball velocity this season, and while that is a potential red flag, it is far from the only issue facing him right now.
His command has escaped him, while none of his offspeed and breaking pitches have the same sharpness or effectiveness that they did over his first two years and the first 10 starts of this season. His pitch counts are getting inflated early in games, he is struggling to put hitters away (even when he does get strikeouts), and he consistently finds himself in three-ball counts.
There have been some issues behind the Pirates’ consistently subpar defense.
That was again true on Wednesday night when third baseman Nick Gonzales botched a potential inning-ending double play in what was still a scoreless game, opening the floodgates for a five-run second inning.
But even with that being the case, Skenes was still up to 40 pitches at that point and had only recorded four outs in the game. That also does not excuse the fact that he proceeded to give up a three-run home run, and then three more runs over the next two innings. He used to be able to pitch through those moments.
There is no shortage of theories on what has happened to him.
Is it a potential injury causing the drop in velocity and loss of command?
Did new pitching coach Bill Murphy change something mechanically or with his approach?
Is it as simple as the league finally making an adjustment and him needing to adjust back?
Is it related to his pitching in the World Baseball Classic before the season?
Or could it potentially be a little bit of everything all combined?
In the end, the why and the how do not matter as much as the results. In what has been a complete 180 from the 2025 season, when their offense failed a top-tier pitching staff, the Pirates have one of Major League Baseball’s best offenses in 2026 and are likely to miss the playoffs due to a badly underperforming pitching staff. Right now, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner is at the top of the list.
