Paul Skenes’s speed is a cause for concern (more than ever)

Paul Skenes won't win the Cy Young this year. He isn't pitching at the level we saw during his first two seasons in the majors.

But it goes deeper than that.

In early August, my colleague Pascal Harvey wrote an article about how Skenes's velocity was a cause for concern.

Well, that's truer than ever after his outing yesterday.

While Skenes was known as the king of velocity, his outing yesterday showed that he's likely hiding an injury.

He didn't throw a single pitch over 97 miles per hour. That's not his usual style, let's be honest. Eury Perez, on the other hand, threw 56 pitches in that range yesterday.

But it goes beyond that, since in a 2-0 loss to Miami, Skenes allowed two earned runs over five innings.

The problem? He had only thrown 65 pitches and was pulled from the game. Normally, with 65 pitches and two earned runs, a healthy starter stays in the game.

There's clearly something fishy going on here.

Just yesterday, my colleague Sébastien Berrouard wrote that today's pitch velocity makes it hard for pitchers to recover from their starts.

Is that what we're seeing with Skenes? Should the dreaded term “Tommy John” be brought into the discussion?

Will the Pirates, who are six games away from the playoffs, decide to rest Skenes in the coming weeks?

• The American League standings.

• Blue Jays win: they're 2.5 games out of the playoffs. Brett Bateman is making a great first impression right now.

• Great news.

• Nick Kurtz: His season is clearly over.

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