Pirates ace Paul Skenes capped his historic rookie season on Saturday with an incredible performance against the Yankees.
The likely NL Rookie of the Year pitched only two innings but struck out three Yankees batters, including right fielder Juan Soto and centerfielder Aaron Judge back-to-back and third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. to end his brief outing.
Skenes delivered a 99 mph fastball perfectly placed on the inside of the plate to get Soto to strike out looking.
Judge swung on an offspeed, breaking pitch low and away for Skenes’ second strikeout of the game.
As with Soto, Skenes caught Chisolm Jr. looking with pinpoint accuracy on an inside 99 mph pitch, his final as a rookie.
Selected No. 1 overall in the 2023 MLB Draft, Skenes lowered his earned run average to 1.96 while increasing his strikeout total to 170.
Per Baseball Reference, he’s the ninth pitcher this century to strikeout at least 170 hitters with an ERA below 2.00, joining Pedro Martinez (2000), Roger Clemens (2005), Clayton Kershaw (2013, 2014, 2016), Zack Greinke (2015), Jake Arrieta (2015), Jacob deGrom (2018), Blake Snell (2018) and Justin Verlander (2022).
Among the group, Kershaw (2016), Grienke, and Clemens are the only ones not to win the Cy Young.
At 22, he’s also the youngest to accomplish the feat since Dwight Gooden during his age-20 season (1985).
Per BetMGM, Braves pitcher Chris Sale (-3000) is an overwhelming favorite to win the award. Skenes will likely need to settle for NL Rookie of the Year honors, but that doesn’t make what he accomplished as a rookie less impressive.