Tim Benz: Ben Cherington's Paul Skenes-Pedro Martinez comp misses a crucial ingredient

During his weekly radio show on Sunday afternoon, Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Ben Cherington was asked if he had ever seen anyone like Paul Skenes.

The name he pulled was Pedro Martinez.

“I was with the Red Sox during part of Pedro’s prime. They’re very different pitchers. They do it in different ways. Different personalities, obviously. Different body types,” Cherington said on 93.7 The Fan. “That was an event when Pedro pitched at Fenway in those years. It was really electric. Different styles. Some of the outcomes were similar.”

Cherington was right in distinguishing between Skenes and Martinez when it comes to style, build and personality.

Skenes is 6-foot-6, 260 pounds. Martinez pitched at 5-foot-11, 170 pounds. Skenes is reserved and seems to employ a “speak softly and carry a big stick” mentality. Martinez had an effervescent flair and a big personality. Both can boast an array of deadly pitches in their arsenal, but they employ them in a different manner.

Yet Cherington’s greater point was also right when he compared their level of dominance, and when he described the event-like atmosphere every time Martinez took the mound at Fenway Park.

During Martinez’s seven years in Boston, he won the Cy Young twice and finished in the top four of voting four other times. He went 117-37 with a 2.52 ERA, 1,683 strikeouts and just 309 walks.

But for as great as Martinez was, the key stat there was 117 wins. The last Pirates pitcher to swim in those waters was John Candelaria. His best seven-year stretch as a Pirate resulted in 114 wins from 1976-1984.

During the Pedro-era, the Red Sox won 91.2 games per season, won a World Series, went to the playoffs four times and the ALCS three times, never finished lower than second-place in the American League East and never finished below .500.

If Cherington wants to replicate the Pedro-esque atmosphere whenever Skenes pitches here at PNC Park, that’s the missing ingredient: team success.

The Pirates are a long way off from that.

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Right now, “Paul Skenes Days” at PNC are seen as an oasis. They are a departure from the drudgery of watching the Pirates slog through another 70-something win total over a six-month season.

When Skenes pitches, it brings a sense of relevance. That one start every five (or six … don’t get me started) days makes the Pirates matter. The score matters. The outfield positioning matters. The counts matter. The run support matters. The umpire’s strike zone matters. The lead of the base runners matters.

The baseball matters.

The baseball. Not the fireworks afterward or the bobblehead giveaways. Not the advertisements on the Clemente wall or the banners on the planes flying overhead.

If only the final scores mattered just as much.

They did in Boston back when Martinez was the king of Massachusetts. They don’t matter so much yet for Skenes in Pittsburgh. Not in the vacuum of what is potentially another last place season.

That said, at least when Skenes pitches, the crowd chants for him. It doesn’t create chants against the owner. The boos are for the opposing team, not the Pittsburgh manager.

Well, until he comes out of the dugout to pull Skenes before the seventh inning.

But unless the Pirates actually build a contender around Skenes, his starts on the North Side are never going to match the vibe Cherington remembers across New England on “Pedro Days.”

There’s not much Skenes can do about that.

Cherington can, though. And a little extra cash from the owner wouldn’t hurt either.