Pirates fans might be overlooking the Paul Skenes atrocity after the All-Star Game

The 2025 All-Star Game represented something that Pittsburgh Pirates fans know full well: an opportunity for Paul Skenes to be instantly dominant on the mound. It was also a guarantee that he'd leave the game without factoring in to the decision.

Of course, with this being the All-Star Game and Skenes being the starter, this was a foregone conclusion. A starting pitcher needs to pitch five innings to secure a win, and as dominant as Skenes was with a perfect inning that featured strikeouts of Gleyber Torres and Riley Greene, there was no way he was going to last more than a single frame.

But for Skenes, who is seventh in baseball in innings pitched with 121 at the break, this is nothing new. Arguably the best starting pitcher in the game, he has just a 4-8 record on the season. Every Pirates fan knows the offense has been bad, but to what degree Skenes' stellar starts are being wasted might not be readily apparent.

Pirates star Paul Skenes has been getting atrocious levels of support

With an ERA of 2.01 and a durable right arm that logs a ton of innings, it'd be logical to think that Skenes would be racking up the wins even with a subpar offense. After all, he goes deep enough into games to not only factor into decisions, but also shut down the opposition for the majority of the contest. He's extremely stingy at allowing runs.

Yet he's been tagged with twice as many losses as wins through the unofficial first half of the year, in large part because the offensive support he's received hasn't just been subpar, it's been downright horrid.

The Pirates have provided Skenes with 3.2 runs of support per nine innings over his 20 starts, a mark that ranks eighth in the majors. Of the seven pitchers to receive worse support than Skenes, two are his teammates.

Andrew Heaney (2.5) and Mitch Keller (2.7) own the second- and third-worst marks in this metric, further highlighting exactly how putrid the Pirates' offense has been.

So while there was no shot that Skenes would get the win in the All-Star Game, the observation that he couldn't even get a win when backed by an All-Star lineup further underscores the futility of Pittsburgh's offensive attack this season.

Imagine what Skenes could do with even below-average run support, rather than a mark that's in the league's cellar? It's been more than luck that has held Pittsburgh's lineup back this year, and the blame for wasting another year of a generational talent's career starts with Bob Nutting, one of the worst owners in the league, and trickles on down from there.