Paul Skenes appeared like a new summer intern, dressed in a light gray suit, white shirt, and cream-colored tie. At just 22 years old and with only 11 games in the big leagues, he stood out among dozens of All-Stars at the ballpark. “It’s pretty cool,” he said.
Despite the scorching 102-degree heat outside Globe Life Field, Skenes was heating up himself, set to start Tuesday’s All-Star Game for the National League. He’ll make history with the fewest major league appearances ever for an All-Star pitcher, showcasing his unique splinker pitch—a mix of a sinking splitter and a fast sinker—that’s confounding batters.
NL manager Torey Lovullo from Arizona praised him, saying, “He’s very intriguing to me, and I’m honored to sit next to him.”
But Skenes, humble amid the attention, kept his focus. “It’s an honor, but I’m only 11 starts in,” he said. “Hopefully, I’ll have many more years to play this game.”
Just a year ago, Skenes was the top pick in the amateur draft after winning an NCAA title with LSU. Now, he boasts a 6-0 record with a 1.90 ERA, striking out 89 batters and walking only 13 in 66 1/3 innings.
Steven Kwan from Cleveland, who leads the majors with a .352 batting average, will be the first to face Skenes in Tuesday’s game. Kwan learned he’d lead off for the American League through a group text from his parents, initially unsure if it was true.
“Sometimes they’ll just post stuff that isn’t even correct,” Kwan joked. “I did kind of a double take and be like: Is this really true?”
He’s eager to challenge Skenes’ array of pitches, which include fastballs, splitters, sliders, curves, and changeups. Skenes’ four-seam fastball averages 99.1 mph, the highest among pitchers with at least 1,000 pitches in the majors.
“He’s a once-in-a-generation talent,” Kwan said. “There’s a lot of pressure on him, and some people probably want to see him fail because of that. But he keeps doing well, he keeps succeeding. He says the right things. It seems like his teammates really like him.”
Standing tall at 6-foot-6, Skenes has already had two games where he didn’t allow a hit for six innings or more. He hasn’t been able to try for a no-hitter because of the limits on how many pitches he can throw, which is part of the way baseball is played now.
When he came to the major leagues, Skenes was already famous because his girlfriend is Livvy Dunne, who is a gymnast and has a big following on social media.
Skenes looks a bit like an old-time baseball player with his mustache on his young face. But he does things the way baseball pitchers do them now, with special warm-ups that include using footballs, heavy balls called PlyoCare balls, and water bags.
Skenes grew up in Orange County and went to El Toro High School, which has had other famous baseball players like Nolan Arenado, Matt Chapman, and Austin Romine.
He went to the Air Force Academy, where he played both catcher and pitcher. LSU coach Jay Johnson convinced him to transfer after the 2022 season, and last year he started pitching all the time.
“They stopped letting me take batting practice with the regular hitters,” Skenes said. “I wanted to keep hitting for as long as I could. But I realized I was better at pitching, so I stopped hitting.”
His best pitch is called a splinker, which Statcast says is a kind of splitter. His splinker goes an average of 94.1 miles an hour. That’s 1.1 miles an hour faster than anybody else who has thrown 1,000 pitches. The MLB average for a splitter is 86.5 miles an hour.
Before Skenes, most people knew about the splinker because Jhoan Duran from Minnesota used it a lot.
“I was throwing a sinker grip last year at LSU and started experimenting with it after the college season ended and before I had to report to the training complex after the draft,” Skenes said.
“I found a different way to throw it, started using it more, and gained control over it. The final step was testing it against batters to see how they reacted.”
He didn’t change how he held the ball, just how he released it when playing catch. “I just stumbled upon it with one throw,” he said.
Since warming up to Charles Wesley Godwin’s rendition of “Country Roads,” Skenes has become a role model for the next generation of pitchers since his debut at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park on May 11.
Skenes has thrown 75 pitches at 100 mph; the Los Angeles Angels’ José Soriano is second among starters with 36.
After Kwan, Skenes will face Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson and the New York Yankees’ Juan Soto, then possibly AL home run leader Aaron Judge.
“He’s got a 100 mile-an-hour four-seam and I see it as a 95, 96 mile-an-hour two-seam fastball,” said the Mets’ Pete Alonso, who singled and doubled off splinkers on July 5 before taking a 99.
