It is getting harder and harder to overreact to Paul Skenes. Every time you think you have calibrated the hype properly, he goes out and turns a big league lineup into a Triple-A audition. He is already the kind of starter where the opposing team starts doing weird things just to get a baserunner on, which is how you end up with a bunt down the line in the third inning of a game that is nowhere near close to being decided.
Willi Castro dropping a bunt against Skenes in the 3rd inning, which set off the usual unwritten-rules debate.
The bunt itself became its own subplot, which tells you everything about where Skenes is on the food chain right now. Hitters are not trying to beat him so much as they are trying to survive him. That is a Pedro-in-1999, prime-Kershaw kind of energy, and the conversation has officially moved from "is this guy good" to "where does he rank when it is all said and done."
A Mount Rushmore of Pirates legends question with Skenes already in the conversation.
Which brings us to the part that should actually terrify the rest of the NL Central. Skenes is not the whole rotation. Eric Hubbs floated the future pairing of Skenes and Schlittler in the same Pirates rotation, and once you sit with it for a second, it starts to sound less like fan fiction and more like an actual problem opposing lineups are going to have for years. The Pirates have been a punchline for a long time. They might be on the front end of being the opposite of one.
Hubbs doubling down on Skenes as a generational arm and teasing the Schlittler pairing.
The Barstool baseball desk is fully on the bandwagon, and honestly, you should be too. There is a small window every few decades where a long-suffering franchise stumbles into a starting pitcher who bends the sport around him. Pittsburgh has that guy. Go see it in person before the rest of the league figures out how to plan around him, because right now the best idea anyone has come up with is bunting.
A pitch to actually go experience Pirates baseball while this is happening.