PAUL SKENES WANTS TO THROW NO-HITTERS, DATE LIVVY DUNNE AND SAVE AMERICA
He’ll start the All-Star Game with unhittable stuff — must see: a Judge at-bat — and if he loves thrilling fans and hanging with an influencer, he wants to fly F-16s in the military after his career
The mightiest ticket in sports, if not entertainment, is a 6-foot-6 rookie who throws a “splinker” and other unreachable blasts while dating Olivia Dunne and aching to pilot an F-16 fighter aircraft. What more would you like from Paul Skenes? He will start the All-Star Game on Tuesday evening, and when he faces Aaron Judge from 60 feet and six inches away, all of us should disregard everything else in life.
Those who saw Doc Gooden in 1984 and Kerry Wood in 1998, such as me on a day when I ignored 10 stop signs on Chicago’s North Side, should reconsider the greatest pitching start in Major League Baseball history. Skenes is 22 and might strike out that many batters in a game. Think I’m joking? Thursday in Milwaukee, he fanned 10 of his first 13 Brewers hitters and retired the first 16. He took a no-hitter through the seventh inning, when he was removed by manager Derek Shelton, the most unpopular guy in Pittsburgh. He wished to continue and was miffed inside the Pirates dugout, but sure enough, he is 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP and has 89 strikeouts in 11 starts.
Sometime soon, he’ll be allowed to achieve preeminence, perhaps several times over. Twice, he has at least 11 strikeouts over six or more no-hit innings. Only Nolan Ryan has done so in a season, and both times, he finished off no-nos in 1973. Baseball, stuck behind NFL camps and Summer Olympics mania, needs a beast to keep us watching. Skenes is the man, with his mustache, and he goes home to what some young men believe is the hottest girl on the Internet.
Tom Brady is old and divorced. Paul Skenes is the dude everyone wants to be. He employs every weapon. He makes the pitches fly, like bombers from an F-16.
“I think that’s just kinda where we’re at in the season,” Skenes said of his arsenal, including a splinker, known as a two-seamer splitter-sinker. “Just being able to use all my weapons, to attack with them and trust them probably a little bit more than earlier in the season. I’m just in a good spot.”
A good spot? He has revived the sport in western Pennsylvania, where the Pirates were bad losers for too many seasons in a lovely downtown ballpark. And he has given commissioner Rob Manfred a much-needed marketing instrument when all he has are Shohei Ohtani and Judge, both playing for struggling teams. The billions don’t matter when injuries impact contenders, and at the moment, imagine Pittsburgh making a run for a wild-card playoff berth behind Skenes.
“I don’t think anybody thinks that when you come to the big leagues, it’s going to be like this,” Shelton said. “I think we’re seeing a guy that’s just really talented.”
“It’s pretty remarkable,” right fielder Joshua Palacios said. “He’s not just handling his business — he’s straight up dominating. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this.”
For now, we’re absorbing the rage. Rather than wait for Monday, National League manager Torey Lovullo knew Skenes was on the “Dan Patrick Show” and called in to announce a decision. “Paul, first of all, how are you doing? I just wanted to congratulate you. I've chosen you to be the starter,” Lovullo said. “I’m really, really excited for you. Unbelievable honor. So well-deserved. We're super excited to make this announcement. You represent so many great things this game craves. It's such a great story. The way you've come on the scene, the way you've done it with such humbleness, it's noticeable. I'll be honored to be your manager. I'll be honored to see you throw your first pitch.”
Said Patrick: “Is Paul on a pitch count?”
“We'll see what's going on there. Paul's going to throw up a big zero in the first inning for us and we'll take it from there,” Lovullo said.
Every city erupts when seeing Skenes for the first time. Wait for Arlington, Texas. He is selling tickets everywhere, including St. Louis, where fans offered him a standing ovation. It’s so tempting to acknowledge a legend in the early stages, assuming he avoids arm injuries, which is why Shelton pulls back on no-hitters. Other pitchers who have started as rookies are Hideo Nomo, Fernando Valenzuela and Mark Fidrych, who was gone by 29 with a weak rotator cuff. Another phenom I watched, Mark Prior, was derailed and threw his last big-league pitch at 25. Wood was gone too early. So was Stephen Strasburg.
So Skenes tries to understand they’re protecting his future and their future. “Yeah, definitely wanted to finish it,” Skenes said of the no-no. “But throwing every five days, six days, whatever it is now, definitely understand that side of it.”
The Brewers had no chance in 99 pitches against him. Without him, they made a run in a 1-0 defeat. “Hitting against this guy with two strikes is death, you know?” manager Pat Murphy said.
“Guys have velo in the major leagues, but just being able to pitch and kind of just throw anything at any time, he keeps you off balance,” slugger Christian Yelich said.
You wouldn’t know he’s so young with the exception of a few acne spots. No one cares when he’s greeted by Dunne, who continues her social-media influencing when showing prized photos of Skenes. They spent a day in a river boat near the stadium, with Dunne wearing a bikini. “Hooked,” she wrote. Last week, she bought balloons and pizza and celebrated at his place when he was named to the All-Star Game. As of now, their relationship is on a minor scale compared to, well, Taylor and Travis. Who knows down the road? “He’s pretty level-headed all the time — that’s what I love about him — and I think we’re a really good pair because of that,” she told ESPN. “Because I have such a crazy lifestyle and things get thrown my way all the time. Sometimes, my emotions can sway and he’s very level, and I just think it’s a very good match.”
For now, she is off to special events, such as Michael Rubin’s all-white party in the Hamptons, where she took pictures with famous athletes on July 4. She wore a gold dress to the ESPYs. In the fall, she’ll return to LSU for her fifth season with a national champion gymnastics team. “These past four years have changed my life. There is something about putting on a purple and gold leotard,” Dunne said. “And no matter how many opportunities come my way off the mat, there’s just something about LSU. And that’s why I’m here to say, I’m not done yet. Here’s to year 5, baby.”
In Baton Rouge, where they met, Skenes described their public dates as “a pain in the butt sometimes, to be honest.” But in a larger city, with Steelers and Penguins, they aren’t bothered as much. Fans in a smaller town know he could leave in a few years, like Gerrit Cole in 2017, which kills baseball in all but a few markets. A trading card shop in the suburbs is a huge hit on Skenes Day, when one item sold for $80,520.
As we absorb his heat, night after night, what’s most amazing about Paul Skenes is that he wanted to save his country before rescuing the Pirates. He chose the Air Force Academy and dreamed of the F-16. But MLB doesn’t have an established rule for players at service academies, meaning Skenes would have stayed to graduate — and perhaps wait longer to reach the majors. He cried and left for LSU, where he moved from catcher to pitcher and already appears on a path to all-time brilliance. And if he’s off to the Hall of Fame someday, he still wants to defend America in the military.
The All-Star Game? Cy Young Award? Try Sportsperson of the Year.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.