Last Night in Baseball: Paul Skenes bests Phillies, looks like Paul Skenes again
There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That's why we're here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days' games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn't have. Here are all the best moments from the weekend in Major League Baseball:
Paul Skenes’ ERA kept dropping in May, but there were some potentially concerning signs left behind in those early starts. He was uncharacteristically struggling with his command and control, such as when he gave up three home runs to the Cubs on May 1 while walking four, or gave up another four free passes to the Cardinals in his next start, or the three walks allowed to the Mets in the one after that. You don’t really like to think about what a sudden loss of command for a flamethrowing starting pitcher means, especially one as precise with their location as Skenes has been in his young careere, but it was hard to not start to wonder if something alarming was happening. Such is the way of modern baseball and max-effort velocity.
Whatever was bothering Skenes, though, be it physical or mechanical, seems to be in the rear view, as the Phillies just got a reminder of on Sunday. In a performance that secured the sweep for the Pirates, Skenes went 7.2 innings with seven strikeouts against one walk, while allowing just one unearned run and a pair of hits. His ERA now stands at 1.88, even lower than last year’s absurd 1.96 rookie-season performance, and, over his last five starts — meaning the five since that troubling run of command and control issues — Skenes has posted a 0.74 ERA with 39 strikeouts in 36.1 innings, and against all of five walks. He’s also just allowed the one homer in that stretch.
That performance