PITTSBURGH — For decades, if you saw a pitcher looking backward, they were probably trying to sneak a peek at what is showing up on the radar gun. Feel is one thing, but having tangible evidence of how a fastball is performing can help a hurler form a strategy, alter a plan or just give them an ego boost.
Plenty of pitchers will steal a glance it, whether they are mop-up relievers or All-Stars. That includes Paul Skenes, especially at PNC Park.
“I’m checking it probably more than I should,” Skenes said. “Like if you see me look back, I’m not velo checking, I’m metric checking. It’s a nice thing that we’ve got those up.”
Those metrics at PNC Park are vertical and horizontal movement, giving Skenes a chance to see what his pitch shapes are. He can pump triple-digit four-seamers, but with six other pitches that see at least semi-regular usage, that shape also can dictate how the secondary stuff plays.
That was evident Monday. Skenes relied heavily on his four-seamer — throwing it 51 times in his 96-pitch, six inning outing — and matched a season-high 10 whiffs with that four-seamer. That set the pace for an eight-strikeout night, and while he would wind up with a no-decision, a couple of Henry Davis swings late helped the Pirates beat the Blue Jays, 5-2.
The game was tied at 2 in the seventh, when Davis doubled to lead off the frame and eventually scored on a wild pitch. In the eighth, he drove a deep sacrifice fly to tack on an insurance run. Davis also got to be front and center as Skenes put behind a rare off night against the Brewers in his last start.
“I think the consistency of which he takes the time in between starts is what makes him so good,” Davis said. “It’s pretty much always the same.”
Skenes’ four-seamer was the key ingredient to getting back on track, accounting for 10 whiffs and 11 called strikes. He threw it in the zone often (63%), and the Blue Jays didn’t have much of an answer for it.
“We just didn’t need to deviate from it, really,” Skenes said. “Wasn’t so much the game plan. The first four seamer I threw was terrible metrically, and then after that, I threw one with a shape that I haven’t thrown at all this year. So, it was moving differently than it has to this point, and so we just kind of rolled with it.”
That second four-seam fastball had 14 inches of induced vertical break (IVB), according to Baseball Savant. IVB is the upward movement of a fastball due to vertical spin, and generally speaking, the higher it is, the more difficult it is for a hitter to read a fastball. It gives the illusion that the ball is rising.
Skenes entered the day averaging 11 inches of IVB on his four-seamer. So on that offering to Addison Barger, it moved three more inches than usual. Imagine how tough a Paul Skenes fastball is to hit, and then have it move about 27% more than usual.
Skenes got more IVB on his fastball than usual, and Toronto couldn’t do much against him. He mixed in more pitches as the night progressed, striking out four with his changeup, which plays off that four-seamer.
The Blue Jays scratched out two runs in the third inning, marking the first time since June 3 that a team had scored an earned run against Skenes at PNC Park. He wasn’t credited with a win because of those tallies, but five hits and one walk allowed over six innings against the American League East leader again showed why he’s the frontrunner for the NL Cy Young Award.
“I didn’t even know it was that long,” manager Don Kelly said. “I think sometimes he goes out there and he’s so good so often that you kind of come to expect it, which is completely unfair to him because that’s not baseball.”
Of course there’s more to pitching than just data, and Skenes isn’t sneaking peaks at the video boards all game, usually just the early innings. But when the stuff is working — and he’s locating well — he’s shown what he can do.
“The metrics are one thing, executing a pitch is another,” Skenes said. “They’re big league hitters. They’re really good. They can hit good pitches, good unicorn pitches or whatever you want to call them, pitches that have extremely good stuff grades or whatever it is. I think it just came to execution.”
