Paul Skenes' latest scoreless start came with one massive red flag

Paul Skenes finally put another zero on the scoreboard Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels. That was the good news.

How hard he had to work for it was considerably more concerning.

Skenes tossed 5.1 scoreless innings, allowing four hits and one walk in the Pittsburgh Pirates' 1-0 victory. But buried beneath that clean pitching line was a staggering number: Of Skenes' 87 pitches, 43 came with two strikes in the count. That's nearly half of his entire workload spent trying to finish hitters, and he recorded just two strikeouts.

For a pitcher whose dominance has historically been built around overpowering hitters once he gets ahead, that's concerning to say the least. Skenes wasn't getting crushed. He was actually quite effective at generating weak contact. But hitters repeatedly extended at-bats, forcing him to burn pitches and preventing Pittsburgh's ace from pitching deep into a game the Pirates desperately needed to win.

Skenes needed 87 pitches to record just 16 outs.

Skenes' start against the Angels was especially noteworthy because efficiency and command have already become recurring concerns during an uneven second half.

Two starts earlier, Skenes looked much more like himself against the San Diego Padres. He tossed six scoreless innings on three hits, didn't walk anybody and struck out four while throwing — coincidentally — the exact same 87 pitches. That outing snapped a stretch in which Skenes had posted a 5.28 ERA over six starts and issued four walks in three of them.

Then came another step backward. Against the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 1, Skenes surrendered five earned runs on eight hits and three walks in just 4.2 innings. It took him 95 pitches to get that far, including a 26-pitch second inning, with his command regressing considerably from the San Diego start.

Before that, Skenes needed 81 pitches to get through only 4.1 innings against the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 19, issuing four walks while allowing three runs. That's what makes the Angels outing complicated.

The results were excellent. Skenes kept Los Angeles off the scoreboard, gave the Pirates exactly the kind of pitching performance they needed in a one-run game and lowered his ERA to 3.83. But Pittsburgh needs more than zeroes from its ace right now. It needs innings.

With the Pirates fighting for every game in September, they can't afford for Skenes to consistently require 80-plus pitches just to reach the middle innings. Sunday represented progress from the Giants disaster, but the 43 two-strike pitches showed there's still plenty left to fix.

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