Aug 24, 2025; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes (30) pitches against the Colorado Rockies during the second inning at PNC Park. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

Red Sox's Alex Cora Shares Paul Skenes Opinion Ahead Of Pirates Showdown

Originally posted on Boston Red Sox on SI
By Jackson Roberts | Last updated Aug 29, 2025 10:00 AM ET

The Boston Red Sox always draw attention, especially when they're in playoff position, but Friday night's game has a ton of extra juice.

It's a Friday night home game, which has become synonymous with Red Sox walk-offs. It's the major league debut of top Boston pitching prospect Payton Tolle. And it's the Red Sox's first-ever matchup with Paul Skenes, the odds-on favorite to win the National League Cy Young Award.

As the Red Sox get set to tangle with Skenes and his major league-best 2.07 ERA, it's clear they have a lot of respect for the 23-year-old fireballer.

Alex Cora's praise for Paul Skenes

On Thursday, as the Red Sox departed Baltimore to get ready for their six-game homestand, manager Alex Cora compared Skenes to two of the best righties the sport has seen in the last decade, Jacob deGrom and Zack Wheeler.

"He’s a great pitcher, up there with the Wheelers of the world,” Cora said, per Tim Healey of The Boston Globe. “They’re playing well, too. They have a good pitching staff, obviously led by him. It’s a good one.”

In the final two games of the series, the Red Sox will face righties Johan Oviedo and Mitch Keller, who are having solid seasons in their own right.

However, it's the Skenes game that has the attention of the collective baseball world. Not many teams have gotten the best of him this year: He's given up more than two earned runs only four times, and two of them were against the Milwaukee Brewers.

To make matters more interesting, the Red Sox only have two players on the team who have ever faced Skenes, and one, Nathaniel Lowe, will miss the game while his wife is giving birth. That leaves Alex Bregman, who went 1-for-3 against Skenes last summer, as the lone Boston hitter who's seen him in the majors.

The Pirates are only 14-13 when Skenes pitches this year, but it's an opportunity for the Red Sox to prove they can handle an ace with the playoffs fast approaching. For a Friday night at the end of August, it really doesn't get any better than this.

This article first appeared on Boston Red Sox on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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