Over his first two seasons in the majors, Paul Skenes's career was defined by making the impossible look mundane. From his highly anticipated debut at age 21, it only took him two months to be the All-Star Game's starting pitcher. And by the end of his second season, he was the youngest Cy Young Award winner in 40 years.
He wasn't just the best pitcher in the sport, he was on pace to be one of the greatest of all time.
And, despite a dad bod that hardly made him look like an elite athlete, Skenes did it by throwing hard. Really hard. The first pitch of his career was 101 miles an hour. That became the norm for Skenes, who broke triple digits 100 times in his rookie campaign, nearly twice as many as any other starter that season.
Which is why his struggles this season are so hard to understand.
Over his past 10 starts, his ERA is a completely baffling 5.47. Before that stretch started, the highest his ERA had been over a 10-start span was 2.92. The Pirates have won just three of the last 16 games that he's started, and have dropped to last place in their division.
But if there is one clue that begins to illuminate the greatest mystery of the 2026 baseball season, it's in Skenes's velocity. When he was pulled after just five innings and 65 pitches against the Marlins on Tuesday night, his fastest pitch was just 96.5 mph.
In fact, Skenes has only thrown seven pitches faster than 98 mph over his past 10 starts. In six of those games, he hasn't crossed the 98 mark at all, which used to be his baseline As a rookie, 82.6% of his fastballs were at least 98 mph, and the number was still at 58.4% last season. This year, it's just 8.3%.
The obvious suspect is an undiagnosed injury, even if Skenes said at the All-Star break that he wasn't hurt and that the dip in velocity didn't bother him. A 2021 study from the Orthopedic Journal of Sports Medicine, however, showed that decreases in fastball velocity are an extremely common precursor of elbow problems that result in Tommy John surgery.
Manager Don Kelly insisted that his removal on Tuesday wasn't injury-related, which might be even more alarming. The question now is whether Skenes is permanently broken.
The Pirates entered the 2026 season desperate to end the longest postseason drought in the National League. They surpassed $100 million in opening day payroll for the first time in franchise history and called up baseball's top prospect, shortstop Konnor Griffin, a week into the season.
But if success was ever going to come for the Buccos, it would have to hinge on their generational ace.
And in an era when pitchers are throwing harder than ever -- and suffering more career-altering injuries -- Skenes appeared to be an exception. While others burned brightly for a short time before being betrayed by their bodies, he was a picture of consistency through the early days of his career.
Now, fans fear that he will join the list of young flamethrowers who will go through the Tommy John rite of passage. The Los Angeles Dodgers' Tarik Skubal underwent the procedure as a college freshman and Boston Red Sox pitcher Garrett Crochet had it in 2022. Meanwhile, Hunter Greene, another star fireballer in the NL Central, just had the surgery for a second time in his career at just 27 years old. But Skenes had survived his first two Major League seasons without a single serious injury.
For the Pirates, alarm bells are ringing. Last season, Pittsburgh's pitching staff was the fourth-youngest in the NL and had the third-best ERA. They figured they were just a few offensive pieces away from a return to the playoffs. A string of shrewd acquisitions then built a team that produces the third-most runs per game in the NL. But the pitching staff, built around Skenes, is falling apart.
And before they can fix their ace, the Pirates first have to figure out what's wrong with him.