This is one of my favorite things that happens in baseball — when someone or something (or, in this case, both) change the constructs of the game.
So Paul Skenes throws this splinker. It’s the spawn of a split-fingered fastball and a sinker. And as it happens, the Pittsburgh pitcher will face the Cardinals on Tuesday, which isn’t the best of news for them considering he throws a pitch that wasn’t in the brochure. Or the handbook. Or the blueprint.
The rookie phenom already is dominating like a young Jacob deGrom or Dwight Gooden — and he’s also doing so with a pitch from some other planet.
For his splinker, the right-hander Skenes (6-0, 1.90 ERA) grips the ball with a “peace sign,†as his index finger and middle finger each go on top of a seam. And as he releases the pitch, he has the ball come off his index finger strongest, not his middle finger. He’s able to get more sink on the pitch without compromising too much speed.
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“It comes in looking like a fastball,†explained Rob Friedman, the celebrated social media pitching guru nicknamed the “Pitching Ninja,†by phone Monday. “And then, it disappears like a ghost. ... A hitter thinks he’s swinging at Paul Skenes’ fastball, and when he swings at it, it’s gone.â€
Not that hitting a Paul Skenes fastball is a simple task — those things go 100 mph. But the splinker, this bedeviled baseball, still goes around 94 mph. Split-fingered fastballs — or even hybrids of them — aren’t supposed to go that fast. And this splinker thing bites, too.
In this year’s All-Star Game — Skenes was the first No. 1 draft pick to start the All-Star Game the next year — he fired a splinker to Juan Soto. That guy’s pretty good, too. But goodness, Soto’s swing looked awkward and helpless. He nodded to Skenes as if to say: “OK, now that was legit.â€
The Cardinals first faced Skenes on June 11. It didn’t go great for them. The splinker was on display for those paying close enough attention to catch it (he throws it about 30% of the time). In the third inning, Skenes threw six pitches to a battling Matt Carpenter (a mix of fastballs, curveballs and sliders). But on the seventh pitch, he bested him. Skenes got “Carp†to swing past a splinker of 95.4 mph for the third strike.
There is only one comparison for this pitch — again on this planet, anyway. It’s a fellow from Minnesota named Jhoan Duran. As a rookie in 2022, the righty reliever released this splitter-sinker hybrid that baffled batters. After one August affair, Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli told reporters of Duran’s splinker: “That pumps you up like very few things I’ve ever seen from a pitcher. Ever. The end goal is to get three outs. There are a lot of different ways to do that. But my God, that is some insane stuff.â€
The Angels’ Ben Joyce tinkers with a splinker. Friedman said the Athletics’ Mason Miller also is working on one. But those guys aren’t starters as is Skenes. Either way, most major league hurlers don’t throw it — yet.
Skenes is changing baseball by the way he throws a baseball.
And then consider that his story is as bonkers as his pitch. In 2022 — just two seasons ago! — he wasn’t even a full-time pitcher. He was a catcher and pitcher in college ... for a school in the Mountain West Conference.
At Air Force that year, he thrived at both gigs. He transferred to Louisiana State. And in 2023, solely as a pitcher, he produced one of college baseball’s greatest seasons. He won the College World Series and, soon after, was drafted first overall. Here in 2024, he didn’t even start the season as a big leaguer. And now, in his 11 starts, he has 89 strikeouts in 66⅓ innings. And he’s allowed just 13 walks.
And he didn’t even discover his splinker until after his LSU season.
“It was a grip that how I was holding the ball did not change, but the way I was releasing it (did),†Skenes said at an All-Star Game news conference. “And what I was feeling as I released it changed a little bit. And I just kind of discovered it on one random throw, and then I just kept doing it. Just playing around, just playing catch. ...
“I call it a sinker. Everybody else calls it a splinker. That’s how I view it, having a different fastball, different shape and forces hitters to choose between one or the other. And it’s fluid. I’ll use it differently every single outing.â€
Skenes only throws his fastball more often than his splinker — and opponents hit just .157 against the splinker. No batter has yet to homer off the pitch.
Friedman, the “Pitching Ninja,†has been featured regularly on ESPN and has a following of 516,000 on X, formerly Twitter. He’s a baseball junkie, like many of us, and infuses enthusiasm into his work. And talk about street cred. He gave the nickname “Airbender†to the change-up of Devin Williams, the ºüÀêÊÓƵ native who pitches for the Brewers.
The Airbender helped Williams win National League Rookie of the Year in 2020. The splinker likely will lead Skenes to the same hardware in 2024.
“He’s the ultimate pitching machine as far as stuff,†Friedman said of the 6-foot-6 Skenes. “He is very, very thoughtful, in terms of wanting to not leave any of his talents on his table. He wants to unearth everything about pitching that he can. His work ethic is off the charts; his character is off the charts.â€
And his splinker is one of those history-changing pitches that has arrived at the right time for the right right arm.