To be the best, you have to prepare like the best.
That’s certainly what Pittsburgh Pirates rising star Paul Skenes has been doing.
After 27 innings in the majors, the former No. 1 overall draft pick in 2023 is sporting a cool 3.00 ERA, with six walks and 38 strikeouts.
It wasn’t always a smooth ride, but he defeated the vaunted Los Angeles Dodgers lineup on Wednesday to earn his third win of the season.
MLB posted a short video of his pregame routine.
Young pitchers, watch every second of this clip:
It’s all in the prep for Paul Skenes 🫡 pic.twitter.com/dJjNxwvHNp
— MLB (@MLB) June 6, 2024
Many specialists have stated that pitchers will find a long list of benefits by throwing a football.
He also performs all kinds of strength and stretching exercises, not to mention throwing the baseball at different intensities.
In the video, you can see the moment he struck out Shohei Ohtani in the first inning of Wednesday’s game.
Skenes has taken the league by storm ever since the Pirates called him up from Triple-A.
The team now has a solid, underrated rotation with Skenes, Jared Jones, Mitch Keller, and Bailey Falter.
As long as Skenes is healthy, the Pirates not only will be entertaining, but also very dangerous.
If they manage to improve their offense and bullpen, they could be going places this year or next.
They are, at the very least, competitive this year.
That’s certainly a rarity, and a welcomed development.
The league needs the Pirates to be good and try to win in order to be more exciting.
They have the young players and underrated stars.
Now, with Skenes, they have a bona fide ace for years to come.
