Rare Paul Skenes clunker adds to September slide

A rare dud from Paul Skenes on Tuesday night was just the latest sad chapter in a September swoon for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Cy Young favorite couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning as the Chicago Cubs (87-64) beat the beleaguered Bucs (65-87), 4-1, behind their own blossoming ace, Cade Horton.

The 24-year-old limited the Pirates to one run over five innings, striking out six and walking just one. Horton is 8-1 with a 0.92 ERA since the All-Star break. He’s a potential successor to Skenes as the National League Rookie of the Year.

Cade Horton's 5th and 6th Ks...thru 5 pic.twitter.com/I4UMpgBtJr

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 17, 2025

For his part, Skenes yielded three earned runs, seven hits and three walks over 3⅔ innings to earn a loss. His record dropped to 10-10, and his ERA bumped to 2.03.

“Out of the gate, I just didn’t really have a great feel for my body or my stuff. That’s really all it came down to,” Skenes said. “I dialed it in later, but (it was a) long first inning (33 pitches). They did a good job getting the pitch count (92) up.”

The big right-hander struggled with fastball location, got behind hitters, couldn’t put batters away and allowed seven swings that resulted in balls hit at over 100 mph. Four of them went for hits. One of them was a leadoff homer from Michael Busch.

Michael Busch leadoff tank to the last row of the ballpark ???? pic.twitter.com/qfGDA419rQ

— MLB (@MLB) September 16, 2025

“They had good at-bats off of him, and found a way to work the count — get deeper into the count,” manager Don Kelly said after the loss. “I think it was a byproduct of fastball command, not being able to get ahead, and they’re a tough team to put away.”

The defeat is the 10th for Kelly’s team in its past 11 games. The club is 4-10 in September.

Long gone are the salad days of a not-so-terrible June-August when the Buccos went 39-40. And in Pittsburgh, “not so terrible” gets you Hall of Fame consideration.

Or at least consideration to be the long-term manager, as Kelly has gotten.

Let the new general manager figure that one out, if there is one. That’s my belief.

If there isn’t a change, though, Ben Cherington will no doubt keep Kelly on board to do the job in 2026. I’m sure that decision will be filed under the rationale of “September baseball results mean nothing for teams out of the pennant races. It’s about the process.”

But August baseball for teams out of the pennant races is much more important? If they play decent, anyway, right?

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For the Pirates, who were 14-15, it sure seemed to be the case. That’s when the annual, “The Bucs are only a bat or two away” chatter started up again.

They are always a bat or two away. They’ve been a bat or two away since 2015.

As for Skenes, he admitted to being OK with a quick exit during his last outing. He tossed five innings of shutout ball in Baltimore last week.

Following Tuesday’s short start, the LSU product was asked if the grind of a long season had impacted his performance as we’ve reached September.

“Maybe a little bit,” Skenes admitted. “I’ve had a couple of outings like this throughout the year that went well, went poorly, whatever. I think it was kind of just one of those outings where I just didn’t have a good feel for my body, good feel for my stuff.”

Skenes is up to 181 2/3 innings after 160 1/3 last year (combined between MLB and Triple-A). Clearly, the Pirates wanted to see if they can build Skenes’ workload to the point that he can get to 200 innings so he can still be his dominant self in September of next year, should those innings matter.

Ha! I barely got through that sentence with a straight face.

Of course they won’t. These are the Pirates we’re talking about. Pfft! Like, they are really going to be in contention next year. Who am I kidding?

It’s fun to fantasize about, though, isn’t it? Skenes pitching these games in the fall when they have something on the line? Maybe I can con myself into thinking differently in spring training in Bradenton next March.

Why not? We con ourselves into thinking differently about the Steelers every year in Latrobe, don’t we? And how is that working out so …

… never mind.

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