Skenes Earns All-Star Nod

S. Samek

The rest of the 2025 MLB All-Star teams were announced. This of course means the Pittsburgh Pirates have found out how many all-stars they have.

They didn’t have any players win the fan vote to become starters. However, we did find out who will represent the Pirates at the game.

With no surprise the Pirates lone selection is pitcher Paul Skenes. Skenes is having another great first half of the season. He has a 1.94 ERA, 125 strikeouts, 116 innings pitched and a 0.92 WHIP. His 4-7 record is a bit rough, but that is primarily due to the lack of run support given to him when he starts. Like during his most recent start against Seattle the team lost 1-0 despite his dominant pitching. In fact, he is drawing comparisons to 2018 Jacob deGrom for this dominant pitching without run support. Though there is hope Skenes can win the Cy Young Award this year like deGrom did in 2018 in spite of this.

Skenes is certainly the best choice to be the Pirates representative in the All-Star game, which he does for the second time in his career. Now the question is will he get to start the game?

He has a good case too. However so does Zach Wheeler. Clayton Kershaw was included as a legend pick to the team and could also start. Skenes is currently on track to pitch on the Saturday before the All-Star game, which would still allow him to start the contest. If he does start that would mark back-to-back games for Skenes as the All-Star starting pitcher, which is quite impressive already for such a short career. Note he was updated to start Friday July 11th, 2025, instead of Saturday July 12th against the Twins.

Can’t wait to see who is announced as the starting pitcher for the game. Though it’s going to be fun to see Skenes pitch on the league-wide stage again even if he isn’t the starter.