PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – It’s got to be maddening, you are arguably the best pitcher in the game and doing your job, yet the run support is inconsistent at best. What Paul Skenes said about a 3-0 loss to Houston Tuesday.
Over his last five starts Skenes has pitched 28.2 innings, allowed four earned runs and has one win. Half of his last four starts the righty went eight innings allowing only one run and lost both of those outings. On the season, he is 4-6 despite a 2.05 ERA, 0.88 WHIP and .181 batting average against.
"It's kind of one of those things where you can only do so much,” Skenes said. “They guessed right. That was enough today. Gotta rewatch the game — I didn't watch much of our offense — but we'll watch it again and see what we got tomorrow."
It became a theme for Skenes about controlling the controllables. He said that everyone in the majors got to this level by doing that. Worrying about doing their job and not the job someone else is supposed to do. The Pirates scored 10 runs the last time he pitched, unfortunately you can’t bank them and pull them out to use later.
"It's baseball,” Skenes said. “Unfortunately, it's baseball. I know we did a good job against (Arizona starter Zac) Gallen last time out. From what it seemed, McCullers did a good job today. I don't know. I don't watch the offense a ton in terms of process and sticking within our plan — I'm not the right guy to ask. But it just goes back to controlling what we can control. It is what it is."
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Christian Walker got the only run Houston needed, taking a Skenes hanging slider out in the seventh inning. Walker said Skenes has elite stuff with a great mix. He called the Pirates right ‘the real deal’.
But he can only control so much.