To watch Paul Skenes apply the foundational brushstrokes to his self-portrait is to be constantly reminded of the exceptional and electric zaps that come with witnessing a newcomer stride to the mound and redistribute the balance of power between batter and pitcher so thoroughly in his favor. It’s to be reminded of Dwight Gooden in 1984 or José Fernández in 2013, Herb Score in 1955 or Hideo Nomo in 1995, Tom Seaver in 1967 and Mark Fidrych in 1976 and Kerry Wood in 1998 and Fernando Valenzuela in 1981. It’s to recognize the rarity, it’s to revel in the present and cast off projections and what ifs and just lean into being entranced by what is taking shape in the moment against the backdrop of what has enthralled before.
In his second start of the 2025 campaign, Paul Skenes picked up the win after going seven innings and allowing one unearned run on three hits with six strikeouts and no walks. The Pirates’ right-hander has now made 25 appearances in the Majors, and that mini-milestone makes for a good excuse to explore his cumulative numbers against the three active titans who are nearing the end of their exceptional careers: Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Max Scherzer. The table below looks at all four through their first 25 outings.
| Pitcher | GS | IP | W-L | ERA | H/9 | WHIP | K/9 | K:BB |
| Verlander | 25 | 157.2 | 14-8 | 3.42 | 8.7 | 1.287 | 6.0 | 2.10 |
| Kershaw | 24 | 124.0 | 5-6 | 4.28 | 8.7 | 1.444 | 8.9 | 2.07 |
| Scherzer | 16 | 106.2 | 2-7 | 3.21 | 7.8 | 1.247 | 10.0 | 2.98 |
| Skenes | 25 | 145.1 | 12-3 | 1.92 | 6.2 | 0.922 | 11.3 | 5.38 |
Jack Leiter (5.0 IP, 1 H, 6 K, 0 BB) and four Rangers relievers combined on a three-hitter to defeat the Reds, 1-0. The tight but victorious affair gave Texas back-to-back games that turned out 1-0 in their favor, something the franchise had never before experienced.
Leiter’s starting pitcher adversary – Hunter Greene – absorbed the loss with a line that offered seven innings, three hits and the decisive one run. With eight strikeouts and a walk thrown into the mix, he produced a Game Score of 74. Since the start of the 2024 season, Greene has four starts in which he posted a score at least that high and still came away without a win. Those four over this stretch are tied for the most in the Majors, with Atlanta’s Chris Sale along with Seattle’s Bryce Miller and Logan Gilbert also having that many.
Skenes, Leiter and Greene are three of 13 pitchers this season to have made at least two starts and muted opponents to the excessiveness of a batting average-against below .200. Since 1901, there are 128 pitchers who made at least 20 starts in a season with an opponent average below this .200 bar. 11 of them came in both 2018 and 2022, a single-season high for this lens. Last season, there were eight, the third most. 1968 and 2021 are tied for fourth most, with six apiece. Expressed in terms of percentages, here’s another look at these five seasons.
2018: 11 of 124 pitchers with 20+ starts (8.9%) with BAA below .200
2022: 11 of 124 pitchers with 20+ starts (8.9%) with BAA below .200
2024: 8 of 121 pitchers with 20+ starts (6.6%) with BAA below .200
1968: 6 of 84 pitchers with 20+ starts (7.1%) with BAA below .200
2021: 6 of 119 pitchers with 20+ starts (5.0%) with BAA below .200
Brewers’ right-hander Freddy Peralta has bragging rights when it comes to the lowest batting average among this collection of pitchers with at least 20 starts in a season. In 2021, he limited batters to a .165 mark to duck under the bars erected by Pedro Martínez (.167 in 2000) and Luis Tiant (.168 in 1968). Well, Peralta’s at it again in 2025. On Wednesday, he went eight innings and surrendered a pair of hits in a no-decision and currently owns a .133 batting average-against.
Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera, who entered Wednesday’s game with five career homers in 295 at-bats, pumped out three in four to highlight an historic day at the dish. The 24-year-old is one of 24 Cardinals to produce a three-homer game, a list that starts with Frank Shugart in 1894 and includes four appearances each by Johnny Mize and Albert Pujols, another three from Mark McGwire and a pair via Stan Musial. It also includes a four-homer game by Mark Whiten. Until Wednesday, this list hadn’t included a catcher.
~Herrera is the 44th backstop with a three-homer game and at 24 years and 305 days old, is one of the youngest of this collection. The five youngest:
Mickey Cochrane (22, 045) on May 21, 1925
Gary Carter (23, 012) on April 20, 1977
Bobby Estalella (23, 012) on September 4, 1997
Dale Murphy (23, 067) on May 18, 1979
Iván Herrera (24, 305) on April 2, 2025
~Of the 262 batting lines since 1901 that have featured at least three homers and at least six RBI, Herrera’s ranks 32nd when organized from youngest to oldest players. The youngest: Al Kaline (20, 119 in 1955); the oldest: Jason Giambi (40, 131) in 2011.
Cardinals leadoff hitter Lars Nootbaar posted his fifth multi-hit game of the year – the most through six team games for any Cardinal out of that spot since Lou Brock had five during the 1967 season.
After opening the year with two total hits through his first five games, Seiya Suzuki has now posted four straight multi-hit efforts, including Wednesday’s mighty showcase: two homers, a single and five RBI. This marks the third time Suzuki has scripted a four-game streak of at least two hits, but he’s never pushed beyond. He has a long way to go to reach the top of the Cubs’ mountain (at least since 1901), a summit of 11 straight multi-hit games achieved by Billy Herman in 1935.
Suzuki and his teammate Kyle Tucker are tied for second in the NL with four homers. The Cubs have played nine games. One has to flip a number of yearbook pages to find another Cubs squad who had multiple players with this many round-trippers at this stage, finally resting on the 1954 team. That year, Gene Baker, Randy Jackson and Hank Sauer all had four.
The Majors’ 1-2 in stolen bases, Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz and San Diego’s Fernando Tatis, Jr., were at it again on Wednesday, each picking up one. Cruz (6) and Tatis, Jr. (5) have helped elevate their teams to early-season heights in the category, with the Pirates topping the Majors with 19 and the Padres in second, with 15 (both teams have played seven games). Before 2025, the last season to see any team with at least 15 steals through seven games was 1999, when the Astros had that many. The last time any team had 19 at this stage – 1992, when the Brewers had 20. That Brewers club went on to collect 256 stolen bases as one of only five teams in the liveball era to reach that number (along with the 1976 Athletics, 1977 Pirates and 1985 and 1986 Cardinals).
Royals southpaw Cole Ragans fanned 10 over five innings to secure his sixth career double-digit strikeout game (all with the Royals). Ragans has made 46 starts with Kansas City and is already tied with Danny Duffy for the most 10+ K games for any left-hander with the franchise.
Batting in the fifth spot in the order but leading off the fourth inning, Toronto’s George Springer sent one into the seats for his first longball of the season. Springer has connected on 262 home runs, with 112 of them coming when starting an inning (he’s been a leadoff hitter for about 79% of his career plate appearances). Among players with a minimum of a 250 homers, his percentage of longballs when leading off an inning (42.7) trails only Rickey Henderson’s 47.8.
Giants leadoff hitter Heliot Ramos doubled in the club’s 6-3 win over the Astros, extending his streak to six games with an extra-base hit. The 25-year-old has alternated his extra-base hits in an unbroken pattern: one homer on Opening Day, followed by one double in Game #2, followed by one homer and then one double and then one homer before Wednesday’s two-base hit. Anyway, his six-game streak to open the season is the longest for any Giant since Felipe Alou began 1963 with six straight.
San Diego’s Jackson Merrill homered for the second straight game and with the third-inning shot, extended his hitting streak to seven games. Still a couple weeks shy of his 22nd birthday, the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year runner-up is one of 42 players since 1901 to be 21 or younger and open the season with a hitting streak of at least seven games. If Merrill is to get to the top of this collection, he’ll need to hit in 15 straight and with that achievement, he’ll meet Sam Crawford from 1901.
Pete Alonso homered and doubled twice in the Mets’ victory over the Marlins. The line is notable for those two doubles against the one homer, for Alonso has one of the highest HR:2B ratios in baseball history. For all players with at least 200 career homers, Mark McGwire has the highest ratio (2.31), the only player at or above 2.00. The names that follow, from highest on down: Harmon Killebrew, Joey Gallo, Kyle Schwarber, Dave Kingman, Aaron Judge, Ralph Kiner, Sammy Sosa, Cecil Fielder, Alonso, Norm Cash, Frank Howard, Mickey Mantle and Rob Deer. Alonso’s ratio sits at 1.58 homers for every double.
Zack Wheeler allowed a run on three hits with 10 strikeouts and no walks and picked up the win as Philadelphia downed Colorado, 5-1. Since joining the Phillies for the 2020 season, Wheeler is one of 55 pitchers with at least 100 starts. Among them, he ranks third in ERA and second in ERA+, third in WHIP, sixth in hits/9, fourth in HR/9, fifth in BB/9, 17th in K/9 and fifth in K:BB ratio. Counting stat-wise, since 2020 Wheeler is second in wins, second in innings pitched, fourth in strikeouts and first in bWAR.
Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen fanned 13 Yankees in a masterful six-and-two-third inning, three-hit performance that yielded no runs or walks. It’s the second time in his career Gallen has reached 13 strikeouts and issued no walks; he’s one of three pitchers with the franchise to have multiple efforts like this, joining Randy Johnson (eight) and Curt Schilling (two). Gallen’s line is one of 102 since 1901 to showcase no runs and no walks along with 13-or-more strikeouts. Looking at the other end of this timeline, Rube Waddell is responsible for the first three of these efforts. The Hall of Fame southpaw is one of eight pitchers to have at least three such outings:
5 Pedro Martínez, Clayton Kershaw
4 Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson
3 Rube Waddell, Bob Gibson, Mike Mussina, Chris Sale
Anthony Volpe homered for the Yankees, giving the shortstop longballs in four of his team’s first five games (these four round-trippers represent his only hits of the season). Three things about all of this:
~Volpe and Mark Teixeira (2011) are the only Yankees ever to homer in four of the club’s first five games.
~Dating back to 1901, Volpe is one of two shortstops – along with Trevor Story in 2016 – to go yard in four of his team’s first five games.
~Volpe is one of two players, dating back to 1901, to have collected at least four home runs through his team’s first five games and to have also failed to generate any other single, double or triple. The other all-or-nothing guy is also wielding this exceptional line in 2025: Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suárez, who has five hits/homers.
Shohei Ohtani delivered his second career walk-off homer, a solo shot that lifted the Dodgers to 8-0 on the season.
~Ohtani has scored a run in each and every one of the Dodgers’ games this season. He’s the only member of the franchise in the modern era to have a run scored in each of the team’s first eight contests and is one 28 players across the Majors since 1901 to be able to make this claim. Arizona’s Orlando Hudson in 2007 had been the most recent to do it. Jim Thome, for the 2006 White Sox, carried this run-scoring run the furthest, managing one run in each of Chicago’s first 17 games.
~The Dodgers are 8-0 for the first time since the 1955 club opened 10-0. With the Padres off to that franchise’s best start ever (7-0), the 2025 season is one of four since 1901 to feature multiple clubs beginning the year with at least seven straight victories.
1962: Pirates (10-0) and Cardinals (7-0)
1982: Braves (13-0) and White Sox (8-0)
2003: Royals (9-0) and Giants (7-0)
2025: Dodgers (8-0) and Padres (7-0)
Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.
Roger Schlueter
As Sr. Editorial Director for Major League Baseball Productions from 2004-2015, Roger served as a hub for hundreds of hours of films, series, documentaries and features: as researcher, fact-checker, script doctor, and developer of ideas. The years at MLB Production gave him the ideal platform to pursue what galvanized him the most – the idea that so much of what takes place on the field during the MLB regular and postseason (and is forever beautifully condensed into a box score) has connections to what has come before. Unearthing and celebrating these webs allows baseball to thrive, for the present can come alive and also reignite the past.