Paul Skenes' debut with Pittsburgh Pirates draws 5th-largest audience in MLB.tv history

The comparisons were loud when Paul Skenes took the mound in his MLB debut last week. As the hype built, Skenes’ name was alongside Stephen Strasburg and Mark Prior as highly anticipated first starts in the big leagues.

That Saturday in Pittsburgh turned in impressive viewership numbers, as well.

Skenes’ first start in a Pirates uniform took place in front of the fifth-largest audience in MLB.tv history, according to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp. In addition, it was the best day of the year for the site – outside of Opening Day, of course – and the fifth-best overall day in site history.

The MLB debut of @Paul Skenes' on Saturday was the 5th-best game audience ever for https://t.co/7oGCww78Uc.

Then game also helped drive https://t.co/7oGCww78Uc to its best day of the 2024 season (outside of Opening Day), and 5th-best day ever pic.twitter.com/ZHjmpPf2GP

— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) May 14, 2024

Skenes threw four innings against the Chicago Cubs, allowing three earned runs and six hits while recording seven strikeouts. He didn’t get the decision as the Pirates blew the lead, but they eventually came back to get the wild 10-9 victory.

During a Tuesday appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Skenes discussed his interesting debut and compared it to his time in the Minor Leagues. He dominated at Triple-A Indianapolis, and he noted the difference in competition when he stepped onto the mound.

“I don’t want to call that outing a wash, but like it’s such a different and like interesting outing just because there’s so much other stuff going on there,” Skenes said. “It’s a little bit hard to kind of drown it all out. A major league debut is is a major league debut. So, I don’t know exactly.

“The hitters are definitely better. You have to be finer for sure, in terms of how you attack them and that kind of thing, but I don’t know. You’ll probably have to give me a couple more outings for me to give you a definitive answer on that.”

Jeff Passan: Paul Skenes is ‘appointment viewing’

With his first career start in the books, the hype isn’t going away in the early part of Skenes’ career. In fact, ESPN’s Jeff Passan said he’s already becoming one of the biggest draws in the game.

“He’s gonna be good for baseball because over the last 20 or so years, the starting pitcher has become less and less important in baseball,” Passan said. “We’ve seen more guys in more innings out of the bullpen. Paul Skenes is a guy who you can look at on your calendar and say, ‘I’m gonna watch that guy pitch because I want to see something incredible happen.’

“There’s not a lot of appointment viewing when it comes to starting pitchers anymore because, frankly, guys aren’t allowed to go complete games. Guys aren’t allowed to go past 100 pitches. But, this is a guy who went 120 pitches in the College World Series. This is a guy who wants to go deep into the game. This is a guy who throws harder as a starting pitcher than anyone we have ever seen before.”