Paul Skenes, the pitching phenom of the Pittsburgh Pirates, needs to be on the National League All-Star team. He has made just eight starts and is 30 2/3 innings short of qualified status. Doesn’t matter. And it’s not just because Skenes is the needed old-school drawing card of a starting pitcher that the game has been drumming out of fashion. It’s because he’s that good.
How good? Skenes is the second pitcher in history through eight starts to be unbeaten (4–0) with more than 60 strikeouts (61). The other was Masahiro Tanaka, then 25, who had pitched professionally in Japan for eight seasons before coming to MLB. Skenes, 22, was pitching in the College World Series last year.
