I don’t know whether or not Michelangelo had a gallery while he was up on the scaffolding painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Or whether there were bleachers set up behind Leonardo da Vinci while he was putting the finishing brushstrokes on the Mona Lisa.
Rare is the opportunity to watch a master create a masterpiece in person. But LSU baseball fans have had those opportunities every weekend this season when Paul Skenes takes the mound.
Skenes made what is certainly his last regular-season start at Alex Box Stadium on Friday night against Mississippi State. He’s a junior and eligible to return in 2024, but it’s baseball, and the very best baseball prospects turn pro after their junior seasons.
And Skenes is among the very, very best. The top of the pyramid, as Tom Wolfe wrote in “The Right Stuff.” Skenes’ stuff is so good he’s generally projected to go with the No. 2 overall pick in July’s major-league draft to the Washington Nationals behind only his teammate, LSU center fielder Dylan Crews.
Skenes will go. The No. 2 pick is slotted to sign for a few dollars shy of $9 million. I’m sure Skenes loves The Box and the boudin here, but no one is turning down that kind of cash. The leverage he has as a junior with the implied threat that he will not sign and stay in college will dissolve if he comes back in 2024.
Think of Skenes as a rare comet streaking across the sky above LSU’s campus. Certainly in his time here, he’s given LSU fans more than their money’s worth. It’s been one performance suitable for framing after another.
Entering Friday night’s game, Skenes was 9-1 with a 1.73 ERA in 12 starts. He ranked nationally this way:
• Strikeouts: 139 (1st)
• Strikeouts per nine innings: 17.22 (1st)
• WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched): 0.77 (1st)
• ERA: 1.73 (4th)
• Hits per nine innings: 5.33 (4th)
• Victories: 9 (5th)
It’s gotten to the point where opposing coaches basically have thrown in the lineup card when LSU trots Skenes out there. Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis, like Auburn’s Butch Thompson the week before, didn’t send out his best starting pitcher to duel with Skenes on Friday. He’s saving Chris Smith for Saturday’s game to tangle with Ty Floyd. Instead, the Bulldogs started freshman Evan Siary, who brought a 1-1 record and 6.20 ERA to the mound.
Lemonis clearly felt there was little chance of beating Skenes no matter who he threw, so why not enhance your chances of winning Saturday with Smith?
It’s to the point where the big, blazing right-hander formerly from the Air Force Academy has entered “the conversation.”
The conversation is this: Is Skenes the best pitcher ever at LSU?
Your leaders in the clubhouse have, for years, been Ben McDonald and Aaron Nola. McDonald was, of course, a Golden Spikes Award winner and the No. 1 overall pick in the 1989 draft by the Baltimore Orioles. And it is his single-season LSU strikeout record of 202 set in 1989 (over 151⅓ innings) that Skenes clearly has in his sights.
Friday night, Skenes struck out the first six Bulldogs batters, giving him 145 Ks for the season. That was already good for ninth in LSU history for a single season, a feat he accomplished in just 74⅔ innings.
Oh, the Nolan Ryan of it all.
Nola was great, too, winning 30 games in his career and posting a three-year combined ERA of just 2.09.
Skenes has a tendency to nibble at the corners of the plate a bit too much. That and all of the strikeouts really pile up the pitch counts. Partly for that reason, his longest outing this season was 7⅓ innings in his previous start at Auburn.
But that’s nitpicking. For a single season, there may never have been anything like Skenes in the purple and gold. For a baseball program the caliber of LSU, that’s saying quite a lot.
The Tigers are on the road next weekend for their season-ending series at Georgia. Then it’s off to Hoover, Alabama, for the SEC tournament.
After that, LSU is a cinch top-eight national seed in the NCAA tournament, which means the Tigers will get to host a regional as well as a super regional if they advance.
That means one, maybe two more chances to watch Skenes pitch at The Box.
One, maybe two more chances to watch a Michelangelo work in person.
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