Paul Skenes uncertain on when he will be called up to Pittsburgh Pirates

Pittsburgh Pirates RHP prospect Paul Skenes hurled his fourth consecutive scoreless start of the season for the Triple-A affiliate Indianapolis Indians Thursday night.

Skenes threw a career-high 65 pitches over 3.1 innings, striking out eight while surrendering just one hit and two walks. He averaged 100.5 mph on his fastball and threw 100+ with 34 of his 43 total four-seamers, per MLB.com. Skenes, the 2023 No. 1 overall pick out of LSU, is up to 27 punchouts in just 12.2 innings of work.

Appearing on “The Pat McAfee Show” Friday, Skenes was asked if he knew when the plan was for him to get called up.

“I’ll be honest, guys. You know just about as well as I do when I’m going up,” Skenes said.

The Pirates made a big investment in Skenes, giving him a $9.2 million signing bonus, the highest ever for a drafted player. Despite his dominant start to the season in Triple-A, the Pirates are taking things slow with Skenes, hoping to gradually build up his workload. Skenes said after his start Thursday that he wasn’t happy about coming out of the game as early as he did.

“I wasn’t happy,” Skenes said. “But it’s over his [Indianapolis manager Miguel Perez’s] head. It’s over my head.”

Pirates taking things slow with Paul Skenes

Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said on 93.7 The Fan this past weekend that the organization is being “very intentional” with how they handle Skenes’ workload.

“With Paul, we’ve been very intentional about how we’re building his volume coming into the season with a goal of really accomplishing two things,” Cherington said. “One is to try to get him to an appropriate total volume for 2024 coming off last year, when he pitched a full college season and then just a little bit of pro ball.

“We don’t want to go from zero to 100 right away. Paul’s so important to us long term, so we want to be really thoughtful about that.”

The Pirates (11-8) currently sit third in the NL Central. Once Skenes arrives to the show, Pittsburgh will have one of the more promising, young rotations in MLB, which also includes Mitch Keller and Jared Jones.