Pirates' Paul Skenes Gets High Praise Amid Early Season Cy Young Race

The Pittsburgh Pirates have had a much better season than in years past, though it's still fair to note that this team isn't playing as well as it can.

Currently at 19-16 on the season, the Pirates find themselves in the lower half of the National League Central. There's still plenty of time left, and there's a lot to like about Pittsburgh, but this is a team that should be playing a bit better, even if things are much improved over years past.

A lot of that is due to what Paul Skenes has done on the mound. Skenes, outside of two starts this year, his first one and the most recent one against the St. Louis Cardinals, has again been the best pitcher in baseball. Even in a start when he struggled against the Cardinals, he still threw 5.0 innings and struck out nine.

That's why many are still saying that he's the favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award, with an MLB.com writer even going as far as saying that it's his race to lose.

“As with Skubal in the AL, Skenes is still the name to beat in the NL race. He's 4-1 with a 2.48 ERA in six starts for a resurgent Pirates team that has stayed in the thick of things through the first month. And though Skenes hasn't been quite as dominant with strikeouts as we've seen in the past (30 in 29 innings), he's still keeping hitters off base at an elite rate. His 0.72 WHIP would be the second-best mark in baseball if he had enough innings to qualify (he's one short entering Wednesday) and opponents are hitting an MLB-low .141 against him. That's why he's allowed one or no runs in his past five starts,” Jason Foster of MLB.com wrote.

It doesn't seem like Skenes is too worried about that stuff nowadays, saying that he's more focused on his team winning games at a high level and getting through the skid that they were recently on, as the Cardinals had gotten swept in a four-game set against the Pittsburgh Pirates before sweeping the Cincinnati Reds in Pittsburgh this weekend.

“Every team is going to have skids,” Skenes said. “Just got to get back to who we are and just play our game, [don’t] try to do too much -- just [feels] like we’ve been trying to do too much a little bit, especially today.”