On the surface, the final lines of Paul Skenes’ last two starts tell a story of a young pitcher taking his lumps. Five innings, five earned runs and a shutout loss against Philadelphia on May 17. Five innings, four earned runs and a career-high nine hits allowed against Toronto yesterday. Skenes took the loss again to the Blue Jays, falling to 6-4 on the season, while carrying a still respectable 3.00 ERA.Neither start over the past week qualifies as a disaster. Both qualify as concerning for a player the Pirates have positioned as the future of their franchise, and who is routinely anointed as the best young pitcher in baseball.But the surface is not where Skenes lives. The 23-year-old right-hander has built his reputation on stuff that defies convention: a fastball that rises unnaturally, a sweeper that disappears from barrels, a splitter that falls off a table, amongst a seemingly ever-increasingly arsenal of pitches. Executing those pitches has made him the 2024 Rookie of the Year and the 2025 National League Cy Young winner. And for the majority of this season, Skenes has looked like a Cy Young candidate again. He had a stretch where it seemed inevitable that he was going to throw a no-hitter, and it's not hard to envision him having another similar stretch of starts. Over the last two starts, however, the underlying data suggests something has gone sideways. Let's dive into the data.Paul Skenes (PIT) allowed nine hits and four earned runs in five innings against Toronto pic.twitter.com/xvTYr7rNOc— Pitcher List Stats (@PitcherListPLV) May 24, 2026Stuff RatingsThe most immediate red flag comes from the Pitcher List metrics graded for both outings. Against Philadelphia, Skenes received a “C” grade for Stuff — his lowest mark of the young season. The four-seam fastball, his signature weapon, averaged 12.0 inches of induced vertical break, well below the 14.6 inches he generated just six days later against Toronto. That 2.6-inch gap in ride is the difference between a fastball that climbs through the zone and one that sits on a plane hitters can track.Paul Skenes (PIT) tossed four scoreless innings before finishing with five earned runs over five innings. He struck out seven and allowed six hits pic.twitter.com/Adqti1Dqw0— Pitcher List Stats (@PitcherListPLV) May 17, 2026Against the Blue Jays, the Stuff grade rebounded to a “B.” The fastball jumped back to 14.6 inches of IVB. But a new problem emerged: the four-seam got destroyed. Toronto posted a 1.272 expected slugging percentage on contact against the pitch — a number that essentially means when they hit it, they hit it hard, and they hit it in the air. Skenes allowed nine hits over five innings, the highest single-game total of his career.Wavering CommandThe pitch usage data from both starts reveals a pitcher searching for command. Against Philadelphia, Skenes threw his four-seamer 33% of the time against lefties and 35% against righties — a modest decrease from his seasonal norms. Against Toronto, that number dropped to 30% overall. In its place came a heavier diet of sinkers (24%, up), sweepers (21%, up) and splitters (15%, up). The changeup, which had been a consistent third or fourth option earlier in the season, fell to just 10% usage.That mix shift produced odd results. The sweeper, thrown 32% of the time against right-handed hitters in the Toronto start, generated only a 5% CSW — called strike plus whiff — rate. That is not a weapon. That is batting practice. The pitch produced a 0.415 expected slugging on contact, manageable but not nearly good enough for a pitch Skenes leaned on so heavily.Perhaps the most troubling split comes from the location grades. Against Philadelphia, Skenes showed an “A-” command grade versus left-handed hitters but only a “C+” versus righties. Against Toronto, the command evened out to a “B” against both sides — but the overall contact quality worsened. The four-seam fastball’s xSLGcon jumped from 0.639 against the Phillies to 1.272 against the Blue Jays. That is not a slow creep. That is a cliff.A Small Sample Size?Some of this may be noise. Two starts is a small sample, and Skenes’ stuff-plus metrics for individual pitches remain above average in most categories. His four-seamer posted PLV+ scores of 103 and 117 in the two outings, indicating the pitch still creates positive value. The splitter touched a 115 PLV+ against Philadelphia. The raw tools have not evaporated.But the results — the actual runs allowed, the nine-hit outing, the 4.50 ERA over this two-start stretch — are real. The underlying metrics suggest a pitcher whose fastball shape has been fluctuating, whose secondary pitch mix is still in flux, and whose command deserts him on one side of the plate more than the other.For a Pirates team that has treated Skenes as untouchable, these starts do not change the long-term calculus. But they do raise a question the organization would prefer not to answer: is the 23-year-old working through a normal , or is something in his mechanics or pitch selection leading to contact quality that his stuff cannot outrun?The next start will matter. This could all be moot when Skenes goes out and throws a no-hitter in his next start. He's that special. But it would be remiss to not at least analyze what has gone wrong with the generational hurler. Skenes is still one of the most gifted pitchers in the sport. But the last two outings have shown that even a cyborg arm can bleed runs when the fastball doesn’t rise, the sweeper doesn’t bite, and the command wavers.Pittsburgh is watching. So is the rest of the National League in the midst of a buzzing Cy Young race.Make sure to visit Pirates OnSI for the latest news, updates, interviews and insight on the Pittsburgh Pirates!Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow