Paul Skenes got the All-Star nod on Saturday, but Tim Benz argued the Pirates should have sent Braxton Ashcraft instead. The case was built on the numbers. Ashcraft was 9-3 with a 3.24 ERA, 10 quality starts, 122 strikeouts and 108.1 innings pitched. Skenes was 6-8 with a 3.62 ERA, eight quality starts, 119 strikeouts and 97 innings pitched.
That is why Ashcraft is being searched now: the selection debate did not wait for the break, and the Pirates are still playing games that matter in the standings. They were 46-45 and three games back of the Miami Marlins for the last wild card slot, with the right-hander still needed on a staff trying to keep pace. Benz said if the Pirates were going to get a starting pitcher onto the All-Star roster, it should have been Ashcraft. He added that Ashcraft was having a better season than Skenes and asked, in effect, whether Skenes' line sounded like an All-Star resume.
The argument gets sharper because the club's best-known arm had not looked like a lock lately. The Pirates had lost all nine of Skenes' most recent starts, and he was 0-6 with a 5.36 ERA over that stretch. He failed to reach the sixth inning in six of those nine outings and did not get beyond the sixth in any of them, a dip that made the All-Star choice look less like a reward for production and more like a name-driven decision.
That is the friction at the center of it: Skenes was selected even as the season line favored Ashcraft, and the gap was large enough to make the choice feel less settled than it usually does. The column framed it as Skenes being picked because he is Paul Skenes, not because he had been the Pirates' best pitcher when the nominations were made. If the schedule and rotation hold during the homestand, Skenes is set to pitch Tuesday night against the Atlanta Braves and again on Sunday against the Milwaukee Brewers, two tests that matter because both clubs are winning at a higher level and because Milwaukee has allowed the fewest earned runs in the NL while Atlanta ranks second.
For the Pirates, the bigger issue is what Skenes does next, not what the All-Star label says now. He still has two starts before the break to steady a season that has drifted, and the club still has a race to chase. Ashcraft may have won the numbers fight, but Skenes now has the chance to answer it on the mound.
