Skenes Will Give Pirates A Chance And Punch Out Twinkies

Pirates vs. Twins, 8:10 ET

There is a scene in I think one of the Austin Power movies where Mini Me punches, I think Austin, right in the marbles. Then maybe he bites him or something - I don't remember exactly, and probably is reason enough for me to rewatch the movies. Essentially, I bring it up because that's how I felt yesterday watching the Yankees and Mariners. I took two strikeout props - one on Bryan Woo and the other on Marcus Stroman. Both were losers, and both lost by the hook. Gut-punch, nut-punch, sucker punch, slap in the face, whatever you want to call it, I was in pain. I'm trying to recoup a bit here as the Pirates take on the Twins.

There has to be a rule in sports that says if you don't make the playoffs in a certain number of years, you are required to sell the team. I've floated this idea before, but it keeps coming back into my head when I think about the Pirates. They are almost 20 games under .500 at this point in the season, and they are 23 games below on the road. This team has struggled in a number of ways, but none more than the offense - I'm talking about just this year, too. Let's ignore the past decade. The team is hitting just .230 for the season, and they are averaging just 3.4 runs per game. They also only have 64 home runs for the year. Their pitching is very good - 3.68 ERA and a team WHIP of just 1.20 - those are playoff numbers. If the Pirates want to jumpstart a rebuild or figure something out, the could send waves in the baseball universe by trading away today's starter, Paul Skenes. He is arguably the best asset in baseball outside of Shohei Ohtani. He is young, under team control, and has been unreal this year. He is 4-7 for the season with a 1.94 ERA and a 0.92 WHIP. He has also struck out 125 hitters in 116 innings. Sure, pitchers get injured, but this guy should get a haul if they decide to trade him (they will eventually lose him for nothing). They could trade other players, but then they are wasting their chances of Skenes value years. He has five at-bats against him from Twins hitters - just Harrison Bader and Ty France. Collectively, they are 1-for-5 with four strikeouts. 

May 27, 2025; Tampa, Florida, USA; Minnesota Twins pitcher Joe Ryan (41) throws a pitch against the Tampa Bay Rays in the third inning at George M. Steinbrenner Field. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images

I wrote about the Twins yesterday, so if you want to see more details about them, you can read that article - it was a winner. The Twins are a team that has been a bit all over the map, but let's focus less on that and more on the trade potential. With the three Wild Card spots, more teams are tending to stay in the playoff race than avoid it. If I am the Twins, I probably either make the decision to go all in, or go all out. I'd trade away everyone of value - some starters, Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa. The other option would be trade anything in the farm system and see if you can leverage a good pitching staff to navigate through the American League. If today's starter, Joe Ryan, arrives on the market, he should draw a lot of interest. Ryan is 8-4 for the season with a 2.76 ERA and a 0.89 WHIP. For the year, he has only three starts where he has allowed more than three earned runs, and only two more where he has allowed three or more. At home, he has been great, holding hitters to a .188 batting average. He has been very good against Pirates hitters, holding them to a .194 batting average over 36 at-bats. 

Any time that Skenes is going to take the mound for the Pirates, they have a chance at winning the game. The line on this one definitely favors the Twins, and it makes sense. However, the Pirates are 5-6 for the season when Skenes starts on the road, so almost half of their wins are in his road outings. I'm going to back Skenes to go over his strikeouts today. I'll take 7+ at -135 and 8+ at +135. I also could see him getting double digits today. The Twins are middle of the pack with strikeouts.  

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