PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – Before his start on Thursday, Pirates manager Derek Shelton discussed extending the time between Paul Skenes starts as a way to manage workload. Skenes reacted discussing the importance for him to finish this season.
Shelton said it’s a mental, along with physical, hurdle to go through a full professional season. He said veterans discuss how crucial it is to conclude an entire season as soon as you can. Skenes agrees, admitting it was weird last year to pitch, get shut down and then pitch again.
“That’s one of the big things about this season is getting used to how long the season is,” Skenes said after pitching six shutout innings with nine strikeouts. “It’s super-important to be used to that to have a better plan for the offseason and all seasons going forward so it’s not a shock to my system every season.”
“If we're making the season longer incrementally, I think that's a lot worse than making the season longer one time, which as frustrating as it was at the beginning of the season with starting in Triple-A and the innings limit there, I don't think we could have done it any better."
The 22-year-old right-hander says he feels good as he pitched for the fourth time in August. He said he prepared well in the offseason and is comfortable with the work he put in to get to this point. Now he will take the lessons from his first professional season from the travel, pitching on shorter rest (college pitchers normally pitch once-a-week) to the competition.
He believes he showed that he can pitch on shorter rest. He understands the innings limit and working pitch counts, said it makes a lot of sense. He believes his body ‘doesn’t feel substantially worse’ dealing with less time between outings.
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“Feeling good,” Skenes said. “Not necessarily surprised by that but pleased with it, with how good I'm feeling right now. You just got to keep working and sprint to the end of the season here.”