PITTSBURGH (AP) — Paul Skenes is a numbers nerd. Well, most of the time anyway.
The Pittsburgh Pirates ace will make it a point to glance up at the ribbon boards that instantaneously spew out the data following each pitch — velocity, drop, horizontal movement — to get a feel for whether the ball is doing what he wants it to do after it leaves his hands.
He considers the practice educational. A way for the former Air Force cadet who once majored in military strategy before transferring to LSU to decipher what's working and what's not during a given start.
Yet there are two numbers the 23-year-old insists he isn't paying much attention to, at least publicly anyway: his personal win-loss record.
Those numbers remained stuck at 7-9 following six occasionally fiery innings in what became a 5-2 victory over American League-leading Toronto on Monday night.
Facing a team that entered the night with the highest batting average and fewest strikeouts in the majors — and with almost certain future Hall of Famer Max Scherzer watching intently from the Toronto dugout — Skenes allowed five hits and struck out eight.
When he slowly loped, head down as always, from the mound after fanning Blue Jays third baseman Ernie Clement to end the top of the sixth, a sizable chunk of the PNC Park crowd rose to its feet.
Standing ovations when Skenes is finishing up a day's work are becoming the norm.
All too often during what has become a frustrating season for a last-place team, so is the result.
When the Pirates failed to break a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the sixth, it meant that Skenes was left a no-decision for the 10th time in 26 starts. In nine of those starts, he's allowed two runs or fewer, one of the main reasons he could become the first starting pitcher with a losing record to claim the Cy Young.
That prospect puts him at the forefront of the increasingly charged debate around whether “pitcher wins” are a valuable metric in determining a pitcher's actual worth, something that's not lost on him.
Yet asked if the lack of “Ws” under his name bothers him, he shrugs.
Yes, he cares about winning. More specifically, he cares about the Pirates winning. Whether he gets credit for it on the days he gets the ball is beside the point.
“I mean definitely the fact that we have more runs than (the opponents) do at the end of the game, that’s the biggest thing,” Skenes said.
Skenes then broke down why reliever Evan Sisk picked up his first big league victory by pitching a scoreless seventh before the Pirates took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning when Henry Davis dashed home following a wild pitch.
“I grinded, frankly, to get through six,” Skenes said.
He pointed directly at a 24-pitch third inning, when Toronto became the first opponent to score an earned run against Skenes at PNC Park since June 3. If he navigates that part of the game a little more efficiently, maybe he's out there for the seventh. Maybe even the eighth.
“If I do that, there's probably a ‘win’ next to my name,” he said.
Instead, he stood on the top step of the dugout and watched Sisk, Kyle Nicolas and Dennis Santana get the final nine outs as the Pirates won for just the second time in nine games.
Yes, getting the victory would have been cool. But there was joy in having the 28-year-old Sisk get dumped in a basket after picking up his first major-league victory following seven long seasons in the minors.
As Sisk openly wondered what he might do with the ball commemorating the moment, Skenes jokingly suggested from a couple of stalls away that Sisk might not want to play catch with it.
It was a rare and welcome moment of levity for a team that began the year with heightened expectations (internally anyway) before reality set in.
Skenes' won-loss record isn't a reflection of his remarkable performance — he leads the majors in ERA (2.16) and is in the top six in innings, strikeouts and batting average against — but his team's offensive ineptitude.
The Pirates rank at or near the bottom of the majors in nearly every major statistical category. That part of the equation is out of Skenes' control. So he is trying to focus on what he can, namely the process of navigating the rigors of a 162-game season and everything that comes with it.
He's still trying to figure out how to make sure he gets enough sleep given the erratic schedule. To make sure his diet doesn't slip when the club is on the road. To consistently do all the little things behind the scenes that help him be at his best every fifth day.
“If you aren’t taking care of your routine and everything now, it can catch up to you in five, ten years, two years,” he said. “So you can’t cut corners because at some point, you’re going to run out of paper.”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes delivers during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays, Monday, Aug. 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Matt Freed)
BERLIN (AP) — The eight European countries targeted by U.S. President Donald Trump for a 10% tariff for opposing American control of Greenland blasted the move Sunday, warning that the American leader's threats “undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.”
In an unusual and very strong joint statement coming from major U.S. allies, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland on Sunday said troops sent to Greenland for the Danish military training exercise “Arctic Endurance” pose “no threat to anyone.”
Trump's Saturday announcement sets up a potentially dangerous test of U.S. partnerships in Europe. The Republican president appeared to indicate that he was using the tariffs as leverage to force talks over the status of Greenland, a semiautonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark that he regards as critical to U.S. national security.
“We stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland," the group said. “Building on the process begun last week, we stand ready to engage in a dialogue based on the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that we stand firmly behind. Tariff threats undermine transatlantic relations and risk a dangerous downward spiral.”
There are immediate questions about how the White House could try to implement the tariffs because the EU is a single economic zone in terms of trading. It was unclear, too, how Trump could act under U.S. law, though he could cite emergency economic powers that are currently subject to a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said China and Russia will benefit from the divisions between the U.S. and Europe. She added in a post on social media: “If Greenland’s security is at risk, we can address this inside NATO. Tariffs risk making Europe and the United States poorer and undermine our shared prosperity."
Trump's move was also panned domestically.
U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, a former U.S. Navy pilot and Democrat who represents Arizona, posted that Trump’s threatened tariffs on U.S. allies would make Americans “pay more to try to get territory we don’t need.”
“Troops from European countries are arriving in Greenland to defend the territory from us. Let that sink in,” he wrote on social media. “The damage this President is doing to our reputation and our relationships is growing, making us less safe. If something doesn’t change we will be on our own with adversaries and enemies in every direction.”
Six of the countries targeted are part of the 27-member EU, which operates as a single economic zone in terms of trading. It was not immediately clear if Trump's tariffs would impact the entire bloc. EU envoys scheduled emergency talks for Sunday evening to determine a potential response.
The tariff announcement even drew blowback from Trump's populist allies in Europe.
Italy’s right-wing premier, Giorgia Meloni, considered one of Trump’s closest allies on the continent, said Sunday she had spoken to him about the tariffs, which she described as “a mistake.”
The deployment to Greenland of small numbers of troops by some European countries was misunderstood by Washington, Meloni told reporters. She said the deployment was not a move against the U.S. but aimed to provide security against “other actors” that she didn’t name.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on social media that “no intimidation or threats will influence us, whether in Ukraine, Greenland or anywhere else in the world when we are faced with such situations." He added that "tariff threats are unacceptable and have no place in this context.”
Jordan Bardella, president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party in France and also a European Parliament lawmaker, posted that the EU should suspend last year’s tariff deal with the U.S., describing Trump’s threats as “commercial blackmail.”
Trump also achieved the rare feat of uniting Britain’s main political parties — including the hard-right Reform UK party — all of whom criticized the tariff threat.
“We don’t always agree with the U.S. government and in this case we certainly don’t. These tariffs will hurt us,” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, a longtime champion and ally of Trump, wrote on social media. He stopped short of criticizing Trump's designs on Greenland.
Meanwhile, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who leads the center-left Labour Party, said the tariffs announcement was “completely wrong” and his government would “be pursuing this directly with the U.S. administration.”
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Norway are also expected to address the crisis Sunday in Oslo during a news conference.
__
Leicester reported from Paris and Cook from Brussels. Associated Press writers Jill Lawless in London, Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, Aamer Madhani in Washington and Josh Boak in West Palm Beach, Florida, contributed to this report.
A crowd walks to the US consulate to protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A boy holds a crossed out map of Greenland topped by a hairpiece symbolizing U.S. President Donald Trump, during a protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
People protest against Trump's policy towards Greenland in front of the US consulate in Nuuk, Greenland, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
