Paul Skenes' workload has certainly been monitored over his most recent stretch of six starts, a span in which he's thrown five innings or fewer in all but one.

Skenes, who allowed two runs and struck out six over five innings tonight, is on board with this and knows the plan will only help him moving forward. He's still thrown more innings (121) than any other pitcher in Major League Baseball not named Tarik Skubal and takes pride in the fact that he's maintained his role as a workhorse, all while having his share of shorter starts of late. 

"That was the goal," Skenes said when I asked about this particular topic tonight. "As we closed the book on last year and went into the offseason, that was the big thing. Basically just being able to go out there and throw innings, have the body, be ready to take on volume. Definitely cool to be able to actually do that now. Obviously the shorter starts — I don't know what I was on pace to throw, but it was I think over what we were shooting for at the beginning of the year. And so that's why we're doing these shorter starts. So hopefully it's going to set me up well to come out strong in the second half and continue to take on volume."