Paul Skenes believes in the Pittsburgh Pirates heading into next season as they look for their first playoff berth since 2015.
After entering the MLB All-Star break with a chance in the National League Wild Card and even the division, the Pirates went 8-19 in August and were no longer in the hunt. Their ace is well aware of the struggles the team faced but is already looking ahead with confidence in his team for the 2025 campaign.
MLB.com’s Jim Lachimia asked Skenes about the Pirates coming up short following a rough month of August and his belief in them for the upcoming season. Pittsburgh’s ace has a response that Pirates fans should be excited about.
“Yeah, the last couple months of the season — especially that stretch in August — left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths,” Skenes said, as transcribed by Lachimia. “We were in it up until then and then had a bunch of things not go our way. My hope is, we got that out of our system and we’re going to have more self-awareness in terms of how we’re going to be able to win moving forward. I know the talent here is going to get better. We just need to have an identity and some good camaraderie. From there, I’m not going to say nobody is going to stop us, but I like our chances because there are simple and straightforward ways for us to win a lot more games without any huge, sweeping changes. I know I can’t wait for Spring Training to start.”
With Skenes leading the way, Pittsburgh should be able to make a real splash in the NL.
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