{"id":645826,"date":"2026-03-27T04:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/645826\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T04:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T04:06:17","slug":"paul-skenes-explains-why-his-opening-day-start-turned-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/645826\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes explains why his Opening Day start turned ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Skenes gave a rather analytical breakdown of his abysmal Opening Day start against the Mets on Thursday.<\/p>\n

When asked by reporters about his outing in the Pirates\u2019 11-7 loss to the Amazin\u2019s<\/a>, Skenes said that despite not giving up much hard contact, his batting average on balls in play was high, causing his start to go awry quickly, as he only recorded two outs before being yanked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou got to look at it through, for what it is,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a ton of hard contact. Leadoff walk is not great. But yeah \u2026 the Polanco ground ball, stuff like that. The batting average on balls in play thing was super high today. That\u2019ll go down as the season goes on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skenes left Thursday\u2019s game after just two-thirds innings in which he gave up five earned runs \u2014 matching his career high \u2014 off four hits, along with a walk and two strikeouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not as upset about this for me, personally, as people would probably think,\u201d Skenes said, according to The Associated Press<\/a>. \u201cBecause they did a really good job. It was an abnormal outing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skenes\u2019 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) sits at .800 following his short-lived start.<\/p>\n

Pirates skipper Don Kelly pulled Skenes after just 37 pitches, saying that he did not want the righty to push it this early into the season.<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul Skenes walks off the field after being taken out of the game during the first inning of the Pirates\u2019 11-7 Opening Day against the Mets at Citi Field on March 26, 2026. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to stay out there and pitch,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really tough thing going to get him in the first inning right there. The bottom of it is Paul\u2019s health. You\u2019re getting close to 40 pitches, yeah 37 pitches and Lindor had a seven-pitch at-bat that first at-bat. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf he runs another 7-10, you\u2019re into dangerous territory with the starting pitcher in one inning, so we had to make the move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPaul Skenes looks down on the mound during the first inning the Pirates\u2019 Opening Day loss to the Pirates. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n

Not all of the Pirates\u2019 first-inning meltdown was strictly on Skenes, though, with center fielder Oneil Cruz misplaying two fly balls that extended the early rally for the Mets.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat ball straight at him, he came in, got a bad read,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cHe\u2019s been working hard out there. He just needs to continue to get better. Then the one in the sun. He just lost it in the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes gave a rather analytical breakdown of his abysmal Opening Day start against the Mets on Thursday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,4,61,877,10,776,64,4297,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-645826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-new-york-mets","11":"tag-paul-skenes","12":"tag-pirates","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","15":"tag-pittsburghpirates","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116299169863078465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}