Gilbert vs Skenes provides opportunity for a historically bad offensive game

There are times in sports when it is fun to see a low-scoring game. I always lean to football here, not in the Browns-Cardinals matchups where they couldn't score more than 20 points even without a defense on the other side of the ball, but am thinking of the times when you have a Steelers-Ravens type matchup, where the defenses are just so utterly dominant that they shut down anything the offense can do.

It baseball, it's the times when you have a historic pitcher on the mound, say a Verlander vs Scherzer type matchup where you just know that it doesn't matter who is at the plate, it's going to be tough to score runs.

Skenes and Gilbert could combine for a historic game today

Then, you have the matchup that is set to occur the afternoon of August 16th, 2024, with the Seattle Mariners taking on the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are losers of 10 straight games where they have scored 2 or fewer runs five times, whereas the Mariners are having a historically poor year at the plate, have the worst BA in baseball, and are on-pace to destroy the record for most strikeouts in a season.

Enter Logan Gilbert and Paul Skenes. Gilbert leads the league in WHIP, and his numbers would look even better if not for the sham of a game in Boston that saw a terrible ball call on an easy strike three call with two outs, and in turn led to 6 runs being scored that inning. Maybe he wouldn't given them up later that day, but I'm blaming the ump and saying it's 100% his fault, because I'm a fan and I can do that and feel fine about it.

Then, you have Paul Skenes, who is looking like the next big thing in baseball on the mound and has everything available in his arsenal to own the position for the next 15 years. He hasn't been as good since the All-Star Break, but there are few things in baseball that help a pitcher get back on track better than an outing against the Mariners.

Skenes routinely gets around 100 pitches a game before being pulled, consistently throwing 6+ innings in his outings. Through 15 starts, he hasn't made it through 6 innings only four times, and is averaging 6.13 innings per outing. He's had 11 strikeouts twice this season, and if I had to take an over/under of 11.5 Ks in today's game against the Mariners, I would lean towards the over.

Gilbert goes 6.42 per game, getting deeper into games than nearly anyone else in baseball, and that's with hitting triple-digit pitches only three times this season. To be third in baseball in innings pitched while hardly ever hitting 100 pitches is quite impressive. In fact, he's 30th in pitches thrown with 2189. Seth Lugo has five more innings thrown but 210 more pitches, while Logan Webb has 561 more pitches in 10 more innings.

I bring this all up because we could be in-line for a historically ugly day at the plate for both teams. I'm talking about 15 Ks for Skenes as he tries to put together a Roger Clemens Red Sox performance against the Mariners. I'm talking about multple innings for Logna Gilbert where by the time you finish your handful of popcorn and drink of soda, he's thrown his 7 pitches and ended the inning already.

Could Skenes go 8 scoreless and strike out 16? Could Gilbert be set to repeat what he did against the Padres earlier this season and sit at 72 pitches through 7 innings? (We won't talk about the 8th inning that game). Could we see a Maddux?!

Be ready for ineptitude today. Make a game out of it to try and enjoy what you are seeing. This could be a Mark Buerhle special where the game goes an hour and 37 minutes and the final score is 2-1. Or, because I just wrote a whole piece about it, neither pitcher makes it past the 5th inning and the score ends up 8-6, because.... well, baseball.