Tim Benz: Paul Skenes impresses without having his A-level stuff, while Pirates bullpen gets failing grade again

A few days after his six-shutout-inning, 11-strikeout, no-hit performance in Chicago, Paul Skenes said he would do something “cooler” than that in his career.

He probably will.

I don’t think his start Thursday qualified. But you could say it was cool in a different way.

It was cool in the sense that Skenes didn’t rely on his fire-blazing power arm to mow down the San Francisco Giants with strikeouts en route to an outing that resulted in him leaving the game with a 5-1 lead after six innings.

It was cool to see Skenes pitch around baserunners like a veteran all day. It was cool to see him erase the first two Giants to reach base with double plays over the first two innings.

It was also cool to see Skenes battle in a completely different manner than what we have been told to expect since he was drafted No. 1 overall out of LSU last summer and based on his overpowering arsenal.

It wasn’t cool to watch the bullpen blow another lead and see the Pittsburgh Pirates lose 7-6, but we’ll get to that later.

“I didn’t have the best stuff,” Skenes said after Thursday’s defeat. “But I made do. That’s their game. They aren’t going to punch out a lot. They put the ball in play.”

To Skenes’ point, San Francisco is in the bottom half of the league when it comes to strikeouts, 18th in MLB with 403. Skenes blamed his breaking ball command for not being able to put away more Giants hitters.

“It was mostly relying on the fastballs rather than the slider or changeup as much as we have the past couple of weeks. But you have to compete with what you have,” Skenes said.

On the positive end, give Skenes credit for staying poised after giving up six hits, avoiding a big inning, keeping the ball in the ballpark, controlling baserunners, and doing enough to get the win.

“They got some first-pitch hits. Balls left in the middle,” manager Derek Shelton said. “It’s the big leagues. This kid is really good. But we have to respect that there are big-league hitters up there that are really talented.”

Skenes allowed just that one run and one walk over six innings despite only striking out three Giants. After totaling 22 swings and misses in six innings against the Cubs last time out, Skenes dipped to 13 this time.

Furthermore, Skenes has managed to leave all three of his starts with the other team having, respectively, one run, zero runs and one run on the board.

Then again, Skenes has yielded a total of 16 baserunners over 10-plus innings in his first two home starts. So, for as dominant as Skenes was in college (and at Wrigley Field), his stuff hasn’t been so overwhelming yet on the big-league level that we should regularly expect the Roger Clemens-type of performance we saw last Friday.

A big problem is he has had to leave during the fifth inning once and after six innings twice because he has thrown so many pitches to get to the end of his starts.

Skenes’ pitch counts so far have been 84 through four-plus innings in his debut, 100 through six in his win in Chicago and 93 through six innings Thursday.

The Pirates were predisposed to be highly cautious with Skenes’ arm from the moment they drafted him. They aren’t going to extend him deep in games unless he is sailing along with a low pitch count — something that is difficult to do for someone who is usually a high-strikeout pitcher.

That means Skenes has to come out of games and yield to the Pirates’ increasingly odious bullpen. Pittsburgh’s bullpen ERA is 4.66, 26th in MLB.

The Cubs plated eight runs after Skenes left his first start and three in a 9-3 Pirates win during Friday’s rematch. The Giants put up six once Skenes departed Thursday afternoon. Fortunately for Skenes, the Pirates totaled 19 runs over his first two starts and won both games. But Thursday’s six runs of support weren’t enough for him and his relievers.

“It’s a concern. Our bullpen has to be better,” Shelton said. “We had a 6-2 lead (Wednesday). We have to be better. We have to win games like that… It’s frustrating. We have to finish games like that.”

A “concern” is an understatement. With Skenes’ pitch count being watched so closely, he is rarely going to be allowed to be his own closer. If a no-hitter where pitch No. 100 of the afternoon comes in at 100 mph still is not good enough for him to stay on the mound (as was the case Friday), Skenes’ starts are often going to be turned over to the bullpen.

Right now, that’s a lousy way to get the team’s top asset into the win column on a lot of the days he pitches.

Listen: Tim Benz and Kevin Gorman discuss Paul Skenes’ latest start, the Pirates’ bullpen woes and the struggles of Rowdy Tellez.