Pittsburgh Pirates pitching phenom Paul Skenes, the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year who dominated MLB hitters with 170 strikeouts and a 1.93 ERA in 133 innings, appears ready to pick up in 2025 where he left off, based on his five Spring Training starts. Skenes made his final start of the spring on Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles, allowing a hit, a walk and no runs with four Ks in 3 1/3 innings.
Skenes wound up his spring training with 23 strikeouts and a 2.50 ERA in 18 innings, erasing any doubt â if there was any â that MLB’s 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick, out of LSU, has already become the face of the Pirates organization. That is why, when Skenes talks, the Pirates fan base and the team’s upper management has no choice but to listen. And following his final spring start, Skenes had some words that he apparently wanted Pirates owner Bob Nutting to hear.
Skenes: ‘We Owe Something to the City’
The Pirates are currently in the midst of the fourth-longest World Series championship drought of any MLB team, winning the most recent of the franchise’s five titles in 1979 (the Pirates’ first World Series win came 70 years before that, in 1909). For Skenes, who will turn 23 years old on May 29, the team’s more recent drought may be more relevant.
Last qualifying for the playoffs in 2015, the Pirates are now looking at a full decade without playing a postseason game. Skenes, speaking to Alex Stumpf of MLB.com following Saturday’s outing, was not shy in expressing his dissatisfaction with the franchise’s recent failures.
“I think we owe something to the city. We owe a lot to the city. It’s our job to go out and win for the city because this is bigger than all of us. There’s a reason why ‘Cutch keeps coming back, and specifically to Pittsburgh,” Skenes said, referring to 16-year veteran Andrew McCutchen, the Pirates’ first-round draft pick in 2005, 11th overall, who played his first nine full seasons in Pittsburgh, returning to the team before the 2023 season.
“There’s something about this city. We saw it last summer. We’ve seen it in videos of the Wild Card game. I’m tired of watching them because it was a Wild Card series,” Skenes continued. “The bar needs to be set pretty high. Not taking anything from those guys. The fact that that’s a Golden Era in recent Pirates baseball, that needs to change. We owe it to the city.”
In 2015, as well as in 2014, the Pirates played in and lost the NL Wild Card game.
MLB Insider to Nutting: ‘Get Out and Get a New Owner’
Based on the 2024-2025 offseason, there is no indication that Nutting â a ski resort entrepreneur and newspaper publisher â has done anything significant to better the team’s outlook. Heading into the season, Pittsburgh’s total player payroll stands at $78 million, ranking 26th of the 30 MLB franchises.
Skenes is far from alone in expressing his dissatisfaction with the current state of the Pirates. On Friday longtime MLB insider journalist and Fox Sports reporter Ken Rosenthal called on Nutting to sell the team.
“If youâre losing money and you canât make it work and you donât want to take the necessary steps to invest in the product, then why not sell the team?” Rosenthal said on the Foul Territory podcast.”If theyâre not going to try â and, in many ways, theyâre not trying from a major league standpoint â then just get out and get a new owner.â
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