Opposition Research: Paul Skenes is a special talent

The Washington Nationals are facing one of the brightest stars in baseball today

Paul Skenes was so close to being a Washington Nationals. We were just one pick away from getting the 22 year old mega star. Despite being in the league for just a year, Paul Skenes is one of the faces of the sport already. Armed with an 100 MPH fastball and a famous girlfriend, Skenes is a money maker for the MLB.

Today the Washington Nationals will have to square off against the Pirates ace. Despite his tender years and limited experience, he is already one of the best pitchers in baseball. I wanted to take a look at how he gets it done.

Deep Arsenal:

Despite his elite velocity, Paul Skenes throws the kitchen sink at hitters. He has a seven pitch mix that dominates opponents. Skenes throws a four-seamer, a splitter, a sweeper, a sinker, a slider, a changeup and a curveball.

However, his most dominant weapons and most used pitches are the four-seamer and the splitter. His splitter is a very unique pitch. It is coined a “splinker” because it is somewhere between a splitter and sinker.

He throws this pitch at 94 MPH and it gets both whiffs and soft contact. Skenes throws this pitch 31% of the time and will throw it in any count. A lot of times Skenes likes to pitch backwards, using pitches like the splinker or his array of other secondary pitches to get ahead in counts before finishing guys off with his fastball.

A lot of power pitchers get a lot of outs in the air, but not Skenes. His ground ball percentage is at an elite 59.6% this year and was over 50% last year. The ability to get quick ground outs as well as strikeouts makes him such a special pitcher.

Pinpoint Command:

For a 22 year old who has some of the nastiest stuff in the world at his disposal, Paul Skenes has shockingly good command. He hits his spots like a grizzled vet and walks are a rarity. Skenes walked 6.2% of hitters as a rookie and is even more stingy this year, issuing free passes at a 4.3% clip.

It is truly elite command to go with elite stuff. Finding a weakness in Skenes’ game is honestly quite difficult. The Nationals will have to be on their A game and work counts as best they can to have a chance.

How the Nationals can get to him:

Like they did with a guy like Corbin Burnes, the Nationals need to make life as hard as possible in order to get into the Pirates weaker bullpen. Luckily, the Pirates offense has been anemic, so even if they can’t get anything going against Skenes, they probably won’t be behind by too much.

This is also a big game for Dylan Crews, who is facing his former teammate. Despite being teammates, Crews hit his first college homer off of Skenes back when the right hander was at Air Force.

Hopefully Crews can break out of his slump with a big day against Skenes. Paul Skenes is already one of the biggest attractions in baseball, and honestly I am excited to watch him pitch. Sometimes you have to admire greatness.