In the least shocking news of the spring, Paul Skenes will be the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Opening Day starter.
Everyone already knew that to be true, but the Pirates chose to take it a step further than just a simple announcement.
Pittsburgh’s social media team shared a video Saturday of Skenes in manager Derek Shelton’s office.
After about 45 seconds of small talk, Shelton pretty abruptly says, “Well, you get your first Opening Day start.”
Skenes just replies, “Wow,” and gives Shelton a nice embrace.
Shelton concludes, “Let’s start off 1-0.”
The moment Paul Skenes found out he was starting on Opening Day. pic.twitter.com/xLJUjPKpgY
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) March 15, 2025
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Skenes was an All Star and the NL Rookie of the Year last season. He had a 2.69 ERA and struck out 10.6 batters per nine innings.
Behind Skenes in the rotation are the likes of Mitch Keller, Jared Jones, Andrew Heaney and Bailey Falter.
As The Athletic’s baseball reporter Sam Blum wrote on X, “This meeting could have been an email.”
Another writes, “I think he knew before this.” And a third poster called it “the most unnecessary meeting in the history of baseball.”
That all sounds about right, although Pirates fans are surely happy about anything related to Skenes, their franchise cornerstone.
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