Wednesday’s game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Los Angeles Dodgers featured a matchup for the ages. Paul Skenes, the top prospect in the game, and one of the best young pitchers, went up against Shohei Ohtani, the most dynamic player in the league.
Ohtani is batting .318/.385/.588 this year in 277 plate appearances, with 15 home runs. He’s coming off a season where he hit .304/.412/.654 with 44 homers, and that was his second year of 40+ homers.
Skenes is less than a year removed from being taken first overall in the 2023 draft. He has a 3.00 ERA in 27 innings through his first five MLB starts, with a 12.67 K/9 and a 2.00 BB/9.
The matchup between Skenes and Ohtani featured one of the best young pitchers in the game versus one of the best hitters. It also put the Art of Hitting on full display.
Round One: Skenes
In the opening at-bat, Skenes made a statement, striking out Ohtani on three pitches. The first pitch was a 101.3 MPH fastball, leading to a swinging strike. The next one was a 100.1 MPH fastball for a foul tip. Skenes closed out the at-bat with a 100.8 MPH fastball for the third straight swinging strike from the star hitter.
Paul Skenes Annihilating Shohei Ohtani. 😳 pic.twitter.com/ZCEum3SPGx
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) June 5, 2024
I haven’t watched much of Ohtani during his career. From my perspective watching Skenes, a hitter needs to choose between two approaches. They can either sell out to his fastball and risk the plethora of big breaking pitches, or they can defend against the movement and risk being overpowered by the fastball. It looked like Ohtani chose the latter, and was beat by the velocity.
Round Two: Ohtani
The second at-bat was interesting. Skenes said after the game that he didn’t have the feel for his splinker early in the contest, which removed one of his biggest moving pitches from his arsenal. This meant he had to attack Ohtani with velocity.
The first pitch led to another swinging strike on a 99.6 MPH fastball. Skenes followed with two changeups for balls. He battled back with a 99.5 MPH swinging strike above the zone, which got Ohtani to chase for a 2-2 count.
After a ball inside on a 100 MPH pitch, Skenes went back to the fastball with a full count. This time, Ohtani looked ready for the pitch, blasting it to center field for a 415 foot home run with a 105.6 MPH exit velocity.
Round two goes to Shohei Ohtani 😳 pic.twitter.com/PeNvdak1ep
— MLB (@MLB) June 5, 2024
Skenes called the moment “big on big” after the game. In my recent Art of Hitting column, I talked about “Knuckle Up” mode, where a hitter challenges the pitcher’s fastball. Ohtani looked like he was timing to, and hunting the fastball for the home run. It was power vs power, and Ohtani won this time. I think if Skenes would have thrown an offspeed pitch in that situation, he would have gotten Ohtani off-balanced.
Round 3: Edge to Ohtani
In the third at-bat, Skenes started Ohtani with an 87.7 MPH slider, which Ohtani fouled off with a defensive looking swing.
After seeing mostly fastballs in the first two at-bats, and after seemingly adjusting to the fastball with his home run, my feeling was that Ohtani was still hunting fastballs. Following this first pitch foul, he took time to compose himself.
Skenes followed with a changeup, which went for a ball. His next pitch was back to the fastball, clocking 100.6 MPH. This one was hit by Ohtani for a 107.6 MPH seeing-eye single past a diving Jared Triolo.
The swing from Ohtani on the fastball looked defensive. He got over top of the pitch and rolled over it to the left side of the infield. It’s possible that after two straight offspeed pitches, he adjusted back to the more defensive swing mode that allows him to adjust to movement. The 98.1 MPH fastball didn’t eat him up like the previous triple-digit pitches, but he definitely didn’t time and barrel it like the home run.
Skenes got out of the frame with a strikeout against Freddie Freeman, and an unassisted grounder to Ke’Bryan Hayes. He was also saved by a nice throw home from Edward Olivares on a two-out, line drive single against Will Smith.
Skenes vs Ohtani
The Pirates play the Dodgers again in Los Angeles in a three game series from August 9th-11th. It’s possible that Skenes and Ohtani could face each other again during that series, if the schedule aligns.
This first matchup was entertaining, from a pure baseball perspective. The first at-bat saw the young rookie overpower the star hitter. The second at-bat saw the star hitter adjust to the fastball velocity for a home run. The third at-bat saw a bit more strategy by both players, and a marginal win by Ohtani.
It would be interesting to see how Skenes does when he has command of his splinker. He didn’t throw that pitch once to Ohtani. My view of Ohtani is that he has a “defensive” swing that can adjust to that mid-90s, high movement pitch from Skenes. His swing was shown to have issues against the straight on velocity. Ohtani commented that the fastball is difficult from Skenes due to the release point.
Paul Skenes and Sequencing
Skenes has received criticism in the past for his fastball shape, though I’ve never bought into this. I do think fastball shape is interesting to follow, but I don’t believe there’s a good or bad shape to have. The fastball from Skenes is more straightforward to the plate than most pitchers, but it’s a mistake to undersell the velocity.
When Skenes throws a 100+ MPH pitch, that reported velocity is the maximum velocity the pitch reaches. This is not the velocity of the ball crossing the plate. Because Skenes has less vertical movement on his pitch, his fastball has a more direct path, with some horizontal run from the easy three-quarters arm slot. This means his fastball is crossing the plate quicker, and at a higher velocity, than someone with a fastball that features a lot of movement. Skenes also has such an easy motion to the plate that hitters don’t get an early look at the ball. Their chance to react to his fastball, from start to finish, is more microscopic than most pitches.
Movement adds a challenge for hitters. They have to time to speed, plus adjust to the location of the pitch. The fastball from Skenes requires such a quick adjustment time that even the best hitter in the game can’t catch up to it with a barrel, unless he’s likely hunting and timing to the velocity.
If Skenes only had a 100 MPH fastball, it might be easier for hitters to time to the pitch. Even if that were the case, very few hitters in the game can successfully time a pitch that fast, with such a direct path to the plate.
The problem for hitters is that there’s a timing gap between this fastball and the secondary pitches with movement. The splinker, slider, and even the changeup and curveball offer the challenge of timing to 80-95 MPH velocity, while also guessing correctly the final location.
The splinker is an interesting comparison to the fastball. The splinker usually sits mid-90s, which is about 5 MPH less than the fastball. It also has around 30 inches of vertical drop, which means the path to crossing the plate is longer. The more room a pitch has to travel, the more it loses from its max velocity. The vertical drop of the splinker, and the direct approach for the fastball, likely leaves a larger gap in velocity when the pitch is crossing the plate. It can be a huge advantage that the fastball from Skenes is so direct to the plate.
Hitters need to have two approaches against Skenes. They need to be able to time to an elite fastball with triple-digit velocity that gets to the plate quicker than other pitches. They also need to have a more defensive swing that allows them to adjust to the movement of his splinker, slider, and other secondary offerings.
Because of the gap in velocity between his direct fastball and indirect breaking stuff, hitters need to choose every pitch whether they are going to defend against the fastball, or defend against the secondary stuff.
Timing against the fastball makes a hitter very early for the secondary movement.
Slowing down to adjust for the secondary can leave even the best hitter in the game left overpowered by the fastball.
As Skenes gets more experience, he’ll learn better sequencing abilities to always keep hitters off balanced. Some MLB hitters only have one approach. Skenes can overpower the defensive swingers and fool the hitters hunting velocity. For the elite guys like Ohtani, who can switch between an offensive approach and a defensive approach in the same at-bat, Skenes will need more experience to learn how to keep them off-balance.
One year ago, Skenes was pitching his college team to an eventual National Championship. Today, he’s already looking like an above-average MLB starter. He will be one of the best in the game for years when he gains the experience to know when to best use his stuff against any hitter. Based on his development so far, I don’t think that will be much of a challenge for him.
