Paul Skenes on an encore for his Chicago masterpiece: 'I’m going to do something cooler than that in my career'

Pittsburgh Pirates rookie pitcher Paul Skenes mesmerized the baseball world with his outing Friday at Wrigley Field.

He was spinning a no-hitter with 11 strikeouts before getting pulled after six innings.

Pitch No. 100: ????

6 innings
0 hits
11 K's

Paul Skenes. Wow. pic.twitter.com/3nDXqJfJ8w

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) May 17, 2024

Now, Skenes is set to make the third start of his Major League Baseball career Thursday afternoon against the San Francisco Giants at PNC Park. But he doesn’t seem at all worried about what he’ll do for an encore to that sparkling performance in Chicago.

“I’m going to do something cooler than that in my career,” Skenes said Wednesday.

Would going the full nine innings during one of those no-hit bids be one of those cool things, perhaps?

“That would be cool,” Skenes replied with a grin. But that’s not exactly the accomplishment he was getting at.

“The goal is to win a World Series. However cool a game in May is, there is always cooler stuff to do,” he continued.

For Pirates fans, that didn’t just feel like a game in May. That felt like an awakening. That felt like a reason to believe. With Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller atop this Pirates starting rotation right now, it’s the first time since losing the 2015 wild-card game against the Cubs that Pirates fans are allowing themselves to share in Skenes’ thoughts about how “cool” things could be around the North Shore.

In October. Not May.

It was interesting that Skenes kept defaulting back to the word “cool” in our conversation Wednesday. He was using it to mean “neat,” “fun” or “enjoyable.”

Ironically, though, how “cool” he was on the mound in Chicago on Friday was as much a storyline as the 100 mph heat that was exploding out of his hand at Cubs batters.

“Cool” as in “calm,” “steady” or “unfazed.”

By manager Derek Shelton’s assessment, Skenes’ much less impressive start in Game 1 of his MLB career 12 days ago (also against the Cubs) was hindered because the 21-year-old wasn’t all that cool. As a result, while striking out seven batters, Skenes yielded three earned runs and nine base runners in four-plus innings of work as the Pirates won 10-9.

“I would guess he was a little bit over-amped. So the fastball command wasn’t as sharp as we had seen it in (Triple-A) Indianapolis,” Shelton said. “But overall, the stuff plays, and it’s good.”

In the wake of Skenes’ masterpiece Friday, Shelton took note of how quickly last year’s No. 1 overall pick was able to find a firm emotional rudder after just one big league start.

“The first time you go (to Wrigley), that’s not an easy place to pitch,” Shelton said. “It’s 35,000 people. It’s a different setup in terms of how it is an older ballpark. The fact that he was able to control it just speaks to the emotional maturity that he has.

“He did a really good job of stepping back and taking things from that (first start) and being like, ‘All right, now I’m just going to pitch. I’m going to go right after people. I’m going to use my stuff.’ It was extremely impressive to see.”

For Skenes, he’s not a meditation or yoga guy. He’s not big on breathing techniques or mindfulness tenets. So whatever energy may have been flowing a little too freely in Game 1 for Skenes was simply harnessed through diligently working his routine between starts.

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“Just practicing,” Skenes said. “I don’t sit down and do visualization stuff. There is not an allotted time for that.”

It’s not like Skenes is dismissive of the emotional component of being in control on the mound, though.

“If you are pitching emotionally, then that just gets in the way of what you are trying to do,” he said. “That’s the biggest thing in any game — control your emotions. I’ve pitched in front of big crowds before. SEC away crowds, they get rowdy. I’m used to that and how to navigate those feelings.”

According to Skenes, the Wrigley crowd was “giving it” to him from the outfield. But listening to their reactions as Skenes was mounting the strikeouts and going six hitless, it almost sounded like the big right-hander had won the fans over to his side by the time he was pulled after the sixth inning.

“They didn’t have a ton to cheer about, frankly,” Skenes said with a chuckle. “I don’t pay attention to it a whole lot. But it was cool to shut them down a little bit.”

Yeah. That was cool too. After just one start in the majors, so was Skenes.

After just two starts with the Pirates, Skenes is making baseball cool again in Pittsburgh as well.