Paul Skenes Jokes He’s ‘Worse’ Than Last Year After Posting 1.97 ERA for 2025 Season

Paul Skenes will finish the 2025 season with a 1.97 ERA after throwing six shutout innings in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 4-3 win in 11 innings over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday night.

Despite the all-around impressive performance for Skenes this year, he joked that he got “worse” in 2025 after posting a 1.96 ERA in his rookie season.

“Yeah, I got a hundredth worse than last year,” Skenes said after the game. “I’m actually worse than I was last year. I’m just kidding. It’s cool. I don’t come into the year with any numerical goals or anything like that, any stat goals, but it’s a product of doing what you’re supposed to do.”

Even though Skenes was clearly embarrassed by his ERA inflating from 2024, he did get support from Livvy Dunne on social media.

Per Sarah Langs of MLB.com, Skenes is the first qualified pitcher with a sub-2.00 ERA in his age-23 or younger season since Dwight Gooden’s Cy Young season in 1985.

Skenes, the heavy frontrunner to win the NL Cy Young award, finished his stellar sophomore season currently leading MLB in ERA and FIP (2.37). He’s also first in the NL in strikeouts (216) and strikeout-to-walk percentage (23.7).

Wednesday’s outing was Skenes’ 14th game of the season allowing no earned runs. He allowed two earned runs or fewer in 26 of his 32 starts.

Assuming the Cy Young voting goes the way everyone anticipates, Skenes will become just the third Pirates pitcher to win the award. He will join Vernon Law (1960) and Doug Drabek (1990) to receive the honor.

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