SI

Pirates’ Paul Skenes Had MLB Fans in Shambles After Awesome 102-MPH Fastball

Kristen Wong

Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
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Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes’s performance against the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday was a testament to an old adage: It’s not how you start a game, but how you end it. 

Skenes started the day off by giving up a homer to Rays’ Yandy Diaz on his very first pitch. He would then, however, go on to record one of his most impressive outings of his young career.

The rookie finished with six hits, one run, one walk and one homer in seven innings pitched, racking up a whopping eight strikeouts.

But it was Skenes’s final pitch of the day that left MLB fans the most gobsmacked. In the seventh inning, on his 98th pitch of the game, Skenes calmly fanned Rays’ Alex Jackson on a 101.5 MPH heater before walking off the mound with a wide grin on his face.

Here’s Pittsburgh broadcaster Joe Block on the electric call:

“I’m sorry, Mr. Jackson, Paul Skenes is for real! 102 on his final pitch of the day!”

Skenes’s 101.5 mph strikeout marked the fastest strikeout by a Pirates starter in the pitch-tracking era, per MLB’s Sarah Langs. The strikeout was also the fourth-fastest strikeout by a starter in the seventh inning or later in the pitch-tracking era.

After Skenes’s start on Sunday, he owns a sparkling 2.15 ERA with 38 hits, five home runs and 61 strikeouts through eight games.

Fans had trouble believing Skenes was, indeed, for real. 

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Kristen Wong

KRISTEN WONG

Kristen Wong is a Staff Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. She has been a sports journalist since 2020. Before joining SI, Kristen covered four NFL teams as an associate editor with the FanSided NFL Network and worked as a staff writer for the brand’s flagship site. She has written about soccer, the NFL, NBA, and MLB since 2020, and outside of work, has dreams of running her own sporty dive bar.

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