Can Paul Skenes finish with a goose egg?

At the time of this article, Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Paul Skenes has started nine games in his first season of Major League Baseball. Of those nine starts, he has earned a victory in four of them. However, given some offense to support his pitching, he very well could be at best probably 9-0. Skenes has been so dominant it easy to say he may not lose a game this whole season.

What has become obvious about Skenes in 2024 is that he will keep an opposing team to 1-2 runs scored at best and because he never pitches past the sixth inning (at least not yet), this is keeping him from earning more decisions. When he leaves a game, it has been the case that he either has the lead or finds his team tied by some score. 

Skene’s ERA is an amazing 2.06. In 52 1/3 innings pitched; the kid has struck out 70 batters. More impressive is his strikeouts-to-walks ratio as he has put only 10 players on first base because of walks. Skenes has allowed 44 hits, six of which were home runs. Paul Skenes and Jarod Jones, who is the other rookie pitcher on Pittsburgh’s staff represent the future for the Bucs. 

Jones has not been as dominant as Skenes with a 5-6 record and a 3.66 ERA, but he has struck out 93 hitters in 86 innings of work and walked just 25. Jones has also seen 12 pitches get blasted for a home run. For Skenes, the question now is how many wins he will finish with and whether he is named the National League Rookie of the Year. But a bigger question is will he even lose a single game?

There have been three pitchers in Major League Baseball history that finished a season without a single loss. Those three are Joe Pate (1926), Tom Zachary (1929), and Ken Holtzman (1967). Pate’s story is a curious one. Pitching for the Philadelphia A’s, Pate was making his debut in professional baseball in 1926 and while finishing the season 9-0, all his victories came in relief. Pate had seven saves but was the benefactor of nine wins. His ERA was solid at 2.71. A strikeout pitcher he was not with just 24 in 113 innings pitched while he walked 51 batters. 

The next year in 1927 he went in the opposite direction and lost all three of his decisions without a win. With an 0-3 record and nearly doubling his ERA mark (.520), Pate had surrendered more hits than innings pitched (67 in 53 2/3). Following the season, he was cut by the team and legendary manager Connie Mack as his baseball career came to a screeching halt. 

Three years later than Pate’s historic undefeated season came Tom Zachary who was wearing the pinstripes in New York city and finished 1929 with a perfect dozen victories against no defeats. The Yankees pitcher had gone the entire season undefeated, finishing 12-0. Unlike Pate, Zachary had an exceptionally lengthy career with 19 years in the majors and winning 186 games. But 1929 was special setting a personal best mark in his ERA totals with a 2.48 finish.

Zachary threw two shutouts in his undefeated campaign with 11 starts and seven complete games. He also got credit for two saves. Zachary was not known for strikeouts either with just 35 in 119 innings of work with 30 walks. But he never lost a game. Neither did Ken Holtzman who was with the Chicago Cubs in 1967 when he finished the season 9-0. 

Ken Holtzman also had a lengthy career, 15 years spent with four different teams (Cubs, A’s, Yankees, Orioles). It was just his third season in MLB in 1967 when he won nine games without a loss. He too had a nice ERA of 2.53. Holtzman accomplished this feat in just 12 starts. Three of those were complete games. With just 92 2/3 innings pitched, Holtzman would strike out 62 batters and walk 44. Later in his career Holtzman would with 21 games for the Oakland A’s when they won the World Series in 1973, two more games than he won the season before and then another 19 in 1974 and 18 more wins a year later. 

Aside from pitchers finishing a season undefeated and there have only been the three aforementioned, with his four victories thus far, Paul Skenes has four wins without a loss. How long his streak can go remains to be seen. But in 1912 the great Rube Marquard of the New York Giants began his season winning his first 19 games. Marquard is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and that year he finished with 26 wins to lead the National League against 11 losses. 

That same season, another of baseball’s greatest pitchers ever, Walter Johnson along with Smokey Joe Wood would win 16 straight to set the American League record. Wood would finish with a now untouchable 34 wins against just five losses. In a word…amazing. Wood was on the Boston Red Sox pitching staff where Johnson was of course playing for the Washington Senators. That would be the only team he would play for in 21 years. His career numbers included 417 victories. 

These days it’s hard for a pitcher to not just finish a game but even throw a shutout. So then try to wrap your head around the numbers of Walter Johnson’s day. In 1912, Wood had 34 wins, and Johnson 33. Walter Johnson would top 30 victories again in 1913 with 36. More astounding was his ERA in both 1912 and 1913 (1.39 and 1.14). As he won 16 straight in 1912, Johnson would start in 37 games and complete 34 of them. Players these days have no idea what a complete game is.

Seven of Johnson’s decisions were shutouts. Walter Johnson led the league in strikeouts so many times you can’t count them on both hands. Until Nolan Ryan blew by Johnson for career strikeouts, he was the all-time leader and in 1912 it was one of many seasons that he led the American League in Ks striking out 303 that season. 

The Pittsburgh Pirates are not just a part of this article with Paul Skenes the focus but also with the mention of Elroy Face. The former relief pitcher for the Bucs whose special pitch was the fork ball began his 1959 season with 17 straight victories. He would lose one before the season’s end to finish 18-1. By winning his final five decisions a season before, over the course of the two years he had won 22 straight games in relief. Along the way of his 19 decisions, Face posted an ERA of 2.70 while appearing in 57 games. With 18 wins in relief, he also saved another 10. Face’s season is hard to imagine given he put up these stats without starting a single game. 

In 93 1/3 innings, Elroy Face yielded just five home runs in 1959 striking out 69 and walking only 25. He spent 16 years in the majors, 15 of those with Pittsburgh and his final year in Detroit and retiring with the Montreal Expos that same year in 1969. In 1960 when Bill Mazeroski single handily won the World Series for Pittsburgh, Elroy Face posted a 10-8 record at the age of 32 and saved an impressive 24 games. In the series against the heavily favored Yankees, Elroy Face saved three of the Pirates four victories despite surrendering six earned runs in 10 1/3 innings. 

In that final seventh game of the World Series won by the Pirates 10-9, Elroy Face was in that game for three innings and neither the Bucs nor Yankees could have effective pitching that day. Face gave up six hits and four earned runs in those three innings and saw one pitch clear the outfield wall for a home run. 

This brings us back to Paul Skenes. A little background on the man who throws a pitch called the “splinker.” Skenes is a big dude at 6’6”, and 235 pounds hailing from Lake Forest, California where he graduated from El Toro High school. Skenes was born on May 29, 2002, and as all Pirates fans know, the Bucs drafted him last year with Major League Baseball’s first overall pick. 

Following high school Skenes pitched for the Air Force Academy in 2021 and in a summer league that year, the Cape Cod League but for just five games and eight innings. The Pirates got a glimpse of what was to come in those brief appearances as Skenes struck out 11 batters in just eight innings. He attended the Air Force Academy before heading to Louisiana State University. At the academy he totaled 126 strikeouts in 90 innings of work. Both seasons his ERA was under 3.00. 

In 2023 in just one season with LSU, Paul Skenes won 13 games and took two losses. His ERA was a remarkable 2.05 and he started 19 games two which were complete. The absolutely crazy number was his strikeouts. 209 in 122 2/3 innings. He only walked 20 and gave up just seven home runs. Before getting the call to the bigs, Skenes started in the minors but in less than a year worked his way up to the AAA league. 

In 12 minor league starts, Skenes scored an ERA of 2.12 totaling 34 innings of work and striking out 55 opponents. His control was evident with just 10 walks and he gave up just one round tripper. If you did not know, fellow rookie Jared Jones also played at LSU with Skenes. Together they helped LSU win the 2023 College World Series beating bitter rivals, the Florida Gators. Skenes was named to the series All-Tournament team as well as being named the series Most Outstanding Player. The college year for 2023 was a special one for Skenes as he also won the National Pitcher of the Year Award and the Dick Hower Trophy which represents that honor. For the 2023 series, Paul Skenes earned only one decision and it was a win. However, he did throw 15 2/3 innings giving up seven hits and just two earned runs. To no one’s surprise he struck out 21 batters and walked only two. He did not yield one home run and allowed just two doubles. He came to the plate as a batter 53 times and hit just .132.

In trying to project how his season might finish, let’s just say he doesn’t lose any games for argument’s sake. At this point he only needs nine more to surpass Tom Zachary’s 12-0 record in 1929. Based on his current stats of this writing and using the averages per game that he has put up on this work thus far, the following projections are theoretical. 

Skenes has pitched in 20% of the 43 games the Pirates have played since his debut on May 11. That equates to an average of just about 16 games for the 79 games remaining on the schedule. So, let’s say he can win 16 games, that would give him 20 on the season although based on how he has been used thus far and he not getting to work past six innings, 16 victories are probably not possible. 

If Skenes does start 16 more games, based on his averages through the first nine starts he has had, here is what some of his final numbers may look like at season’s end. Skenes so far is averaging 5.78 innings per start, so all the following stats are based on 16 more starts. Therefore, he would finish with 145 innings of work. The big kid is averaging 7.77 strikeouts per start which over 16 more games would be a total of another 124 whiffs. Add that to his current number and he would end up with 194 Ks. 

Skenes’ control is obvious with so few walks thus far and his average is just about one per start. Another 16 would give him a 2024 total of 26 which would be incredible for 145 innings pitched. Skenes has only surrendered six home runs less than one per start so he might just give up less than 16 but I think even that is high. Overall, Skenes’ ERA is 2.06 and for nine starts the average is 2.28 so if he maintains that neighborhood just finishing with an ERA under 2.5 would be impressive.

As for his special pitch he calls a “splinker” it is a hybrid pitch that combines the effect of a splitter with a sinker and he’s putting it to good use sending batters back to the bench when they either get caught watching the pitch cruise through the strike zone for a third strike and out or they swing and miss mightily on it. Either way this kid throws HARD. Hard in speeds that travel well over 100 miles per hour. Of course, on scoreboards and leaderboards everywhere they aren’t going to list Skenes’ special pitch as a splinker but instead as a sinker. 

In his MLB debut against the Chicago Cubs the splinker was thrown 21 times and Cubbie batters swung and missed on five of them. In that game on May 11 which the Pirates won 10-9, Skenes only pitched four innings but struck out seven batters, and even though he surrendered three runs and a home run, he walked two batters but left the game wowing fans and coaches alike.



The bottom line for Paul Skenes is that if he can in fact finish the season without taking a loss, he will join a very elite company of just three other players in the history of Major League Baseball to be regular pitchers that went through an entire season without a loss on their record. For Pirates fans everywhere, the presence of Jarod Jones and Paul Skenes should excite you about the future of the Pirates. These two young men have been a big part of the Pirates flirting with the .500 won/loss mark all season and keeping the mighty Buccos in contention for a wild card spot in the National League playoffs and who knows, maybe even a division title.