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One of the odd stats from the first half is that the Pirates have lost nine consecutive starts by Paul Skenes. He has a 5.36 ERA in that stretch.
Much has been made of his decline in velocity. He averaged 96.3 mph in his last start, tying a career low in his 73 starts, having dipped to the same number on May 12, which happened to be his last win.
Yes, his velocity has been trending down, as you can see here:
But velocity is not his problem. Skenes is allowing a .188 average on his four-seamer, the best of his career. He’s throwing it about as often as ever and is dotting it on the top rail more than ever.
The bigger problem is Skenes’s off-speed pitches. In 2024 and 2025, Skenes’s off-speed pitches ranked in the 100th and 98th percentiles in run value. This season they are down to the 17th.
Skenes throws seven pitches. His changeup marks only the second time one of them ranks as below average in run value. (The other was the slider in 2024, which he threw only six percent of the time.) Worse, he has lost confidence in his splitter, which was a featured put-away pitch for him as a rookie. As you can see here, it has less movement, is not missing enough bats and is getting waffled:
| Skenes’s Splitter by Year | Usage | Total Movement | Opponents’ BA | Whiff Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | 28.3% | 15.0 | .184 | 29.3% |
| 2025 | 13.5% | 14.5 | .289 | 22.8% |
| 2026 | 11.0% | 13.9 | .366 | 18.8% |
If you look at the annual heat maps of Skenes’s splitter, you understand why his confidence in the pitch has diminished. In 2024 and 2025, he consistently dotted the lower glove side corner of the strike zone. The pitch snaked under the barrel of right-handed hitters who were reading it as a sinker.
But look at how the splitter this year has drifted toward the center of the plate. His average horizontal miss this year is 2–3 inches, which is a lot. But his biggest misses, the ones that get hit, are about eight inches, or almost half the width of the plate. Those are the ones that find barrels.
Skenes’s struggles remind us of two truths about the righthander:
1. He still throws plenty hard enough to get people out.
2. He always has been more of a craftsman than a pure power pitcher.
Skenes is a seven-pitch pitch-maker who relies on movement, sequencing and precision more than blowing away hitters. When he loses his touch on deadening the baseball with his changeups and splits, he loses a big lever in how he can dominate hitters.
