Nearing the Ides of March, about the time when spring training can shed newness for monotony, the embodiment of pitching elevated to its highest form goes about his pregame bullpen work like a neurosurgeon preparing for the operating theater. Paul Skenes is nothing if not deeply, seriously, scientifically, almost maniacally purposeful.
The last amber hour of sunshine in Sarasota, Fla., illuminates his stern face as Skenes stands three steps askew from the bullpen rubber. He steps quickly in and without breaking stride or tempo places his right spike against the rubber, flows into his delivery and launches his first pitch. A few other pitches follow in the same way. There is none of the casual game-of-catch preamble common to such routines. The Angled Walk-In, as the move is known, allows Skenes to feel the counter of his upper body as his hand gets the baseball into the loaded position. It is but one key part to the careful choreography of Skenes’s movements, which are as finely calibrated as the engines of the military jets he dreamed of flying until he grew into the world’s most dominating pitcher. He knows pitchers who mindlessly toss the ball but never get turned sideways properly. It is a wasted throw. Skenes will have none of those.
