Paul Skenes doesn’t do quiet offseasons. The Pittsburgh Pirates ace traveled to Japan in November 2026 for a three-day USO tour visiting U.S. service members and their families — his second straight year making the trip. While he was there, he found time to study the habits of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the two pitchers he looks up to most. And somewhere in between, he stepped into a sumo ring against a professional wrestler. MLB’s cameras were rolling.
The video that took over the offseason
On November 7, 2026, MLB’s official account posted the clip on X with a caption that said everything: «Paul Skenes can do it all, including… sumo wrestling? Watch as the Pirates ace tries his hand(s) at something new.» The video shows the 6-foot-6, 260-pound pitcher squaring off against a professional sumo wrestler on what appears to be a dohyo inside a Japanese venue, crowd watching, Skenes in his black-and-gold Pirates shirt.
His girlfriend, Olivia Dunne, also got in the ring and documented it on TikTok with the caption: «Cute date night ideas: Sumo wrestling 🥰.» Two separate posts — Dunne’s on TikTok, MLB’s on X — but together they painted the same picture: a couple experiencing Japan in a way nobody in baseball had before.
Why Japan, and why two years in a row
This wasn’t tourism. Skenes and Dunne have now made back-to-back USO trips to Japan, spending time with American military families stationed there. Skenes put it plainly in a statement shared by the organization: «Getting to spend time with our service members and their families in Japan was an incredible experience.»
There was a professional side to the trip too. Skenes made a point of studying Ohtani’s sleep habits and has publicly named Yamamoto as the pitcher he most wants to model himself after. For a 24-year-old coming off his first full MLB season, flying to Japan to learn from the best in the world makes a lot of sense.
The 2026 season: still elite, just harder than it looked
The baseball context matters here. Skenes finished 2026 with a 3.82 ERA and a 10-11 record — a significant step back from the combined 1.96 ERA he posted across his first two seasons and the NL Cy Young he won in 2025. His average fastball velocity dropped from 98.8 mph in 2024 to 96.8 mph in 2026, a dip he partially attributed to his participation in the World Baseball Classic with Team USA.
But the underlying numbers tell a different story. Statcast gives him an xERA of 3.3 — meaning the quality of contact he allowed deserved a better outcome than his final ERA showed. He still struck out 28.1% of batters faced (85th percentile in MLB), made his third consecutive All-Star Game, and held hitters to a .227 average. Skenes is still a top-of-the-league arm. It’s just that this time, you could see him working for it.
That the most-watched young pitcher in baseball spends his offseason studying the game’s best, volunteering with the USO, and yes — trying sumo — says something real about what’s behind that Pirates uniform.
Skenes by the numbers: 2026 Statcast breakdown
- Starts: 32 | Innings: 174.1
- ERA: 3.82 | WHIP: 1.12
- Strikeouts: 200 | Walks: 49
- K%: 28.1% (85th percentile) | BB%: 76th percentile
- xERA: 3.3 (82nd percentile)
- Fastball avg velocity: 96.8 mph | Spin rate: 2,171 rpm
- Whiff rate: 28.2%
- Batting average against: .227
- Exit velocity allowed: 88 mph
- Barrel rate allowed: 7.3%
- xwOBA against: 82nd percentile
