For a 22-year-old, Paul Skenes has just about everything someone at that age could hope for. He’s already a star in MLB, is in line for a major payday in a few years, and is in a healthy relationship with one of the most famous collegiate athletes in the country, Olivia Dunne. Skenes didn’t need a ton of help becoming famous himself, as he dominated pitching for LSU before hitting the ground running as the Rookie of the Year for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
But given that Dunne sports an incredible amount of followers on social media, Skenes has seen his stardom rise more than normal since he began dating Dunne while both were at LSU. Non-baseball fans cling to every move the couple makes, including celebrating Valentine’s Day together on Friday night. Just a day later, Skenes was back to work with the Pirates, getting ready for the opening of spring training.
It’s almost impossible to imagine how much better Skenes can get, as he had the lowest ERA (1.96) of any starting pitcher with the same number of starts. He even started the All-Star Game for the National League as a rookie, something that hadn’t been done in 30 years. Skenes knows there’s always room for improvement, though, and he’s been hard at work trying to figure that out.
Paul Skenes set to add two new pitches to arsenal
According to Alex Stumpf of MLB.com, Skenes is set to add two more pitches to his repertoire, which already featured six in total last season.
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington mentioned early in camp that some of Skenes’ pitches already look intentionally different than last year. There are a couple more offerings on the menu this year, like a tailing two-seam fastball and a cutter, the latter being a variation of his two sliders — one with more bite and another with more sweep.
Skenes’ six pitches from his rookie season were a four-seam fastball, sinker, curveball, sweeping curve, slider and changeup. It’s almost unfathomable to throw eight pitches, but Skenes seems intent on becoming a truly one-of-a-kind pitcher. He’s off to a great start, that’s for sure.
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