Pirates star pitcher Paul Skenes named to National League All-Star team for 3rd year in a row

>Pirates star pitcher Paul Skenes has been named to the National League All-Star team for this year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

>The game is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14, at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.

>Skenes, 24, leads the National League in ERA with 2.35 and strikeouts with 505 since making his Major League debut on May 11, 2024, against Chicago (NL). In that same period, he also ranks second in batting average against with .201 and WHIP with 0.96.

>Skenes joins Rip Sewell (1943-44, 1946) and Elroy Face (1959-61) as the only Pirates pitchers to be selected to the All-Star Game in three consecutive seasons. There was no All-Star Game in 1945.

>He also became the first pitcher and one of five players to start in the All-Star Game in each of his first two Major League seasons (2024-25), a group that includes Joe DiMaggio (seven straight, 1936-42), Ichiro Suzuki (four straight, 2001-04), Rod Carew (three straight, 1967-69) and Frank Robinson (two straight, 1956-57).

>Skenes is the first Pittsburgh player to be named to three consecutive All-Star Games since Andrew McCutchen, who achieved the feat five straight times from 2011 to 2015.

>He currently ranks fourth among all National League pitchers in strikeouts with 119. Ahead of him are Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski with 156, Philadelphia’s Cristopher Sánchez with 136 and teammate Braxton Ashcraft with 122.

>Skenes was the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year and the 2025 National League Cy Young Award winner.

>His 119 strikeouts prior to the All-Star break are the eighth-most by any Pirates pitcher before the break in a single season. This total trails Bob Veale (137 in 1965, 134 in 1966, and 122 in 1970), Skenes himself (131 in 2025), teammate Mitch Keller (129 in 2023), Francisco Liriano (125 in 2015) and Ashcraft (122 in 2026).

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