PITTSBURGH -- The Paul Skenes show has lived up to its billing. His first taste of the Majors has been one of the greatest ever for a Pirates rookie, one that should get him Rookie of the Year consideration.

But this was never billed as just a one season engagement. And given the Pirates’ low playoff odds, the question becomes how they should handle their pitching phenom down the stretch. With 125 1/3 combined innings this season entering Thursday's start (98 in the Majors, 27 1/3 with Triple-A Indianapolis), he is approaching his career high in Major League action (he had 122 2/3 with Louisiana State in 2023), and there is still over a month left to go this year. So how far do the Pirates push him?

For now, they’re going to let him keep pitching.

"There is no immediate plan to shut him down,” said manager Derek Shelton before Skenes tossed six scoreless innings in the Pirates' 7-0 win over the Reds. “There has never been any immediate plans to shut him down. How we monitor that, whether it’s an innings limit or a workload limit per game, we’ll be thoughtful about that.”

Shelton has shown a knack for getting creative to manage pitcher workloads in the past, whether that was giving pitchers openers or having a piggyback pitcher cover three or four innings behind the original starter. They certainly have some internal options who could fill that piggyback role, including Jake Woodford, Domingo Germán and No. 16 prospect Mike Burrows.

There are also some concessions that have not been compromised this year. The last box the Pirates wanted Skenes to check before coming up to the Majors was for him to pitch on regular four days' rest. While that’s certainly in the cards in 2025 and beyond, Skenes has pitched on five or six days' worth of rest before every start, a transitionary step between pitching once a week in college versus what the professional game can demand. He’s going to continue to get at least that extra day the rest of this year.

So why go through these extra steps rather than just shut him down? Because Skenes has never pitched a full professional season. The College World Series is held in June, so Skenes has never pitched this deep into a year before. To build him up for the future, he’s going to pitch through at least most of a season.

"The calendar's huge,” Shelton said. “You have to learn how to get through a Major League season. It's really important and most guys are able to do it. You look at a majority, if not 95% of Major League players, not just Major League pitchers who are doing it, they have at least one season in the Minor Leagues, if not two seasons. What he's doing is something that's very different, it's very special. It's something where we also have to be very mindful of. He's learning how to pitch on Aug. 22. He's gonna learn how to pitch in September, all those things."

Skenes’ potential is immense, and he’s already establishing himself as one of the best in the sport despite just now wandering into uncharted territory in terms of workload. His team is going to be there each step of the way.

"Everything is taken into consideration, but player health is No. 1,” Shelton said.