Paul Skenes took the baseball world by storm with one of the best seasons by a rookie pitcher in Pittsburgh Pirates and MLB history.

Among the many people impressed by the 2023 No. 1 overall pick was New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone. Along with Skenes’ stuff, the way he manages to make things look easy caught the longtime Yankees manager’s attention.

“Pretty dynamic,” Boone said. “The ease with which he does it, you don’t feel like he’s peaking out there. “It’s just a simple speed that he can step on the four-seam, drop and change speeds really well. Because he does it with ease, it lends itself well to him being really good at it.”

Skenes shined in his limited work against the Yankees, throwing two shutout innings and striking out three batters on just 23 pitches in the Pirates’ 9-4 win on Saturday at Yankee Stadium. Two of Skenes’ three strikeouts came against All-Star right fielder Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, the favorite to win AL MVP for the second time in his career.

With a 1-2 count and one out in the bottom of the first inning, Skenes had Soto looking for his first strikeout of the day with a 100 mph fastball. One batter later, Skenes found himself in another 1-2 count against Judge, getting the 6-foot-7 slugger to blast a slide out of the zone to end the inning.

Fittingly, on Skenes’ final pitch of the 2024 season, he hit Jazz Chisholm facing a 100-mile-per-hour heater on the front door.

Skenes finished his rookie season 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, striking out 170 batters in 133 innings.

“I’m happy to be able to finish the season and it’s cool to do it here and it’s cool to do it against this lineup,” Skenes said. “I wish I could move on, but this is where we’re at.” I like New York. The stadium is one of the destinations in baseball (and it is) a place to check off your bucket list. Cool to be out there and pitching. I’ll definitely try it out again tomorrow.”

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