If you are a red, white, blue, or green-blooded American like me who doesn’t watch CNN or worship Satan on the weekend, then chances are you have heard of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes.
As Pine Room Soup surmised in his resplendent blog last week, Skenes is the most exciting thing to happen to Major League Baseball and the Pittsburgh Pirates since Cueto dropped his comb and Will Craig made that heads-up play to trap Javi Baez between first base and home plate.
When it was announced Friday that Skenes would start for the NL in Tuesday’s All-Star Game, I felt certain that he would face Yankee super-slugger Aaron Judge in the biggest duel since Hamilton vs. Burr. However, baseball, as it so often does, just can’t seem to get things right!
Few could blame multiple World Series-winning manager Bruce Bochy for wanting to put out his very best lineup for the AL in a game that means as much as an NBA Summer League triple-header on ESPN. Or that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who makes Trump’s security detail in Butler look organized, would want to showcase his games’ two biggest stars.
In fact, most people who don’t have a wager on the game will turn it off as soon as Skenes exists, and even those pulling a Shohei and firing a few quid on the contest will more than likely flip over to Celebrity Family Feud or the Republican National Convention before the second commercial break.
The bottom line is that MLB could have done itself a lot of good if Skenes and Judge were guaranteed to face each other, and now we are forced to wait for a matchup we may never see.
Chances are these two will be teammates soon after 2026, and with the Pirates hillbilly sack of sewage owner, little hope can be had that the Buccos can retain this once-in-a-lifetime talent.
Another backwards K for MLB, which should come as no surprise!
Enjoy the ballgame!