{"id":257458,"date":"2026-08-02T01:59:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T01:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/257458\/"},"modified":"2026-08-02T01:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T01:59:18","slug":"paul-skenes-difficult-season-hits-new-low-with-sloppiest-outing-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/257458\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes\u2019 difficult season hits new low with \u2018sloppiest outing of the year\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Skenes\u2019 ho-hum 2026 season took an ugly turn Friday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The reigning National League Cy Young winner allowed five runs on seven hits and a season-high four walks over just four innings in the Pirates\u2019 8-7 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park, an outing Skenes said was his \u201cstraight up the sloppiest\u201d of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt took pretty much an inning to find my delivery, which happens. Usually it doesn\u2019t look that bad in the first inning,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cJust pretty sloppy all around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40153139\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2287795953.jpg\" alt=\"Paul Skenes #30 of the Pittsburgh Pirates throws a pitch during the first inning of the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on July 31, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio.\" class=\"wp-image-40153139\"  \/>Paul Skenes #30 of the Pittsburgh Pirates throws a pitch during the first inning of the game against the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on July 31, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think today was extreme. Today was just straight up the sloppiest outing of the year for me,\u201d Skenes continued. \u201cI think other than that, probably haven\u2019t been getting ahead in counts enough. You know, walking guys, giving up contact when I don\u2019t really want to be giving up contact at times.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was the second straight clunker for Skenes, who allowed five earned runs over 5 \u2153 innings against the Cubs an outing earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The latest start brought his season ERA to 3.90 \u2013 far from the Cy Young-caliber levels he flashed over his first two MLB campaigns.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even before Friday, Skenes, who posted an ERA below 2.00 in each of the past two seasons, hasn\u2019t seemed right.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps most concerning for Pirates fans has been Skenes\u2019 fastball velocity.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.50146628;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40153214\" width=\"886\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/crop-40153145.jpg\" alt=\"Paul Skenes #30 of the Pittsburgh Pirates looks on during the game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on Friday, July 31, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio.\" class=\"wp-image-40153214\"  \/>Paul Skenes #30 of the Pittsburgh Pirates looks on during the game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park on Friday, July 31, 2026 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  MLB Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Skenes\u2019 average four-seam fastball has dropped from 98.2 mph a year ago to 96.9 mph this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t until Friday, though, that Skenes felt he wasn\u2019t pitching well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUp until today, I think I\u2019ve viewed the past month or so as me throwing the ball pretty well even though it doesn\u2019t look like it at all, really. The month as a whole I don\u2019t think has been terrible. Today was pretty terrible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2026It\u2019s been an interesting year, a little bit. But, it could be a lot worse. We\u2019ll figure it out. I\u2019m going to figure it out. But it could be a lot worse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes\u2019 ho-hum 2026 season took an ugly turn Friday night.\u00a0 The reigning National League Cy Young winner&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[29827,1423,22146,73,75,74,10997,726],"class_list":["post-257458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}