The two were playing together on the United States 12U national team, in Mazatlan, Mexico, in 2014, well before Skenes would become baseball’s biggest pitching phenom. Crow-Armstrong pitched in the tournament, but Skenes never took the mound.
“He was a scrawny catcher,” Crow-Armstrong recalled with a smirk. “I took home the lowest ERA in the tournament, but he’s the No.1 pick.
“I guess things changed.”
Over the first 10 innings of Skenes’ major league career, Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs got a firsthand view at just how much.
The No.1 overall pick from last summer’s loaded MLB draft has wowed the baseball world with his mound presence and electric stuff, throwing 29 pitches at 100 mph or faster — already the most by any starter this season. Just two starts into his big league career, Skenes’ outings have become must-watch events.
“Watching him is like looking at your odometer on the autobahn,” one rival scout said. “It’s 100 all day long.”
In his first major league start on May 11, Skenes said he didn’t really feel like himself. Perhaps it was due to all the hype leading up to the day or just the nerves that come with a major league debut, but the tall right-hander gave up three runs on six hits and two walks in four innings at home against the Cubs. Six days later, in his first road start, Skenes showed what all the hype was about.
“It’s not an easy game to play but it’s a lot easier when you have fastball command and command over your pitches,” Skenes told ESPN after his second game. “It wasn’t necessarily working in my debut, but it was working this time.”
Skenes struck out the first seven batters he faced. He finished the day with 11 strikeouts over six hitless innings, setting a franchise mark for the most K’s by a Pirates pitcher at Wrigley Field, one of the game’s most iconic venues.
“It’s frickin’ Wrigley Field,” Skenes said. “It was sweet.”
Any thought that the Cubs would have an advantage seeing the same pitcher within a week were erased with every eye-popping pitch. Skenes averaged an incredible 99.3 mph on his fastball, 94.8 on his splitter, 86.8 on his change, 84 on his slider and 80 on his curve.
Mike Tauchman was among the many Cubs hitters who couldn’t catch up to Skenes’ stuff. Chicago’s DH struck out three times, including a swing-and-miss on a 100-mph fastball that marked the end of Skenes’ day in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“The fastball command was good,” Tauchman said. “And then he was able to tunnel that splitter/sinker — or whatever he calls it — off of it. And throw those all competitively. When you’re dealing with someone with that velocity and command, and they make you make split-second decisions — he did a good job.”
That combination pitch is called a splinker (though officially tracked as a splitter by MLB Statcast), and the new wrinkle in Skenes’ repertoire is threatening to make the already-daunting task of facing the sport’s best young pitcher downright unfair.
“It tunnels well off his fastball. It has enough of a similar look off his hand,” Tauchman said. “It has more run and drop than his fastball does.”
Skenes mostly stuck to his fastball/splinker combo, mixing in enough of his other pitches to keep the Cubs guessing and showing what separates him in an era full of hard-throwing, young pitchers.
“That’s what attracted us to him,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “His ability with the pitch mix. You can look up and see 101 mph and get excited about it. The fact that he can spin the ball behind in the count, you don’t see guys come out of college a year ago that have the ability to do that.”
After managing two weakly hit groundouts against his former teammate, Crow-Armstrong offered his takeaways for the next teams to face Skenes.
“Being able to limit the top for him or limit the bottom is going to be very important because his stuff plays really well at both levels,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Anything that runs 18 inches at 100 mph is pretty tough.”
Skenes said his phone blew up after the dominant performance, but admitted “that’s been the norm for a while now” since he entered the spotlight while leading LSU to the College World Series title. One of the first people Skenes heard from after the outing at Wrigley was Ryan Theriot, a former LSU and Cubs infielder. The pitcher’s performance reminded Theriot of a former Chicago strikeout artist.
“I know the [Stephen] Strasburg comps, but I feel like it’s more like Kerry Wood in his prime,” Theriot said in a phone interview. “Just the demeanor. I’m not talking about the stuff. I’m talking about the attitude and the demeanor.”
That attitude is why the Pirates are confident he can handle the pressure of being a budding face of the franchise at such a young age. It helps that before transferring at LSU, Skenes attended the Air Force Academy and spent two years as an aspiring cadet.
“You definitely have to be able to handle stuff if you go to the Air Force,” Skenes said. “That taught me how to not care too much about struggling and about staying steady.”
From a somewhat rocky first start to a dazzling follow-up performance that has the whole baseball world watching, that mindset is already paying off for MLB’s newest ace.
A civil lawsuit accusing BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff of rape has been dismissed, according to court records.
The parties jointly agreed to dismiss with prejudice, ending the case which was filed last month. None of the parties was immediately available for comment.
Retzlaff now plans to transfer from BYU as he faces a possible seven-game suspension for violating the school’s honor code by admitting to premarital sex during the legal proceedings, sources told ESPN. He has begun informing staff and teammates of his intention to leave, sources said.
Retzlaff had been working out with the squad and participating in summer workouts and practices. The team is on break until July 7.
The BYU staff has been ramping up the preparation of the three backup quarterbacks — McCae Hillstead, Treyson Bourguet and Bear Bachmeier — in anticipation that Retzlaff might not be available.
The woman alleged Retzlaff raped, strangled and bit her in November 2023. In a response to that lawsuit filed Friday, a lawyer representing Retzlaff denied those allegations but said Retzlaff had consensual sex with the woman.
The response indicated Retzlaff and the woman traded lighthearted text messages for months after the encounter and characterized the lawsuit as an extortion attempt based on the idea that Retzlaff developed into an NFL prospect roughly a year later.
The lawsuit described the encounter much differently.
Both the complaint and the response agree that Retzlaff and the woman connected through social media, which led to her visiting Retzlaff’s apartment to play video games on or around Nov. 22, 2023. The woman arrived with a friend, and friends and teammates of Retzlaff also were present.
Later that evening, the woman’s friend left, after which Retzlaff and the woman started watching a movie and began to kiss, the lawsuit states. While “Retzlaff began escalating the situation,” the suit says, “Jane Doe A.G. tried to de-escalate the situation and attempted to slow things down, trying to pull away, and saying ‘wait.’ She did not want to do anything sexual with him.”
The lawsuit says the woman told Retzlaff “no” and “wait, stop,” but he continued to force himself on her. After she tried to get up out of the bed, the lawsuit alleges, in graphic detail, that Retzlaff put his hands around her neck and proceeded to rape her.
A few days later, the woman visited a hospital, where a rape kit was performed and pictures of her injuries were taken. The lawsuit says she was connected with Provo, Utah, police but did not initially share Retzlaff’s name.
No criminal charges have been filed against Retzlaff.
After the lawsuit was filed, BYU issued a statement, saying: “The university takes any allegation very seriously, following all processes and guidelines mandated by Title IX. Due to federal and university privacy laws and practices for students, the university will not be able to provide additional comment.”
Retzlaff is not the first high-profile BYU athlete who faced a lengthy suspension for an honor code violation related to premarital sex. In 2011, basketball player Brandon Davies was dismissed from the team — which at the time was 27-2 and ranked No. 3 in the country — and suspended from school. He was reinstated that fall. In 1999, running back Reno Mahe was suspended from school and forced to leave the football team. He transferred to a junior college and later reenrolled at BYU.
Retzlaff, who has graduated from BYU, is expected to enter his name in the transfer portal in the coming days. He started 13 games for the Cougars in 2024, his first year as the starter, leading the team to an 11-2 record. He passed for 2,947 yards and 20 touchdowns with 12 interceptions.
Texas State has officially joined the Pac-12, the conference announced Monday, becoming the league’s ninth member ahead of its relaunch in 2026.
“We are extremely excited to welcome Texas State as a foundational member of the new Pac-12,” commissioner Teresa Gould said in a statement. “It is a new day in college sports and the most opportune time to launch a new league that is positioned to succeed in today’s landscape with student-athletes in mind.”
Texas State’s board of regents voted to authorize a $5 million buyout to the Sun Belt Conference early Monday. The Bobcats will remain in the Sun Belt through the 2025-26 season before joining the Pac-12 in all sports for the 2026-27 school year.
The Pac-12 needed to reach eight football-playing schools to meet the NCAA minimum for an FBS conference prior to the 2026 season.
Texas State president Kelly Damphousse called the move “a historic moment” for the university.
“Joining the Pac-12 is more than an athletic move — it is a declaration of our rising national profile, our commitment to excellence, and our readiness to compete and collaborate with some of the most respected institutions in the country,” Damphousse said.
Athletic director Don Coryell echoed that sentiment, calling the opportunity “a new era” for Texas State, which has been in the Sun Belt since 2013 after making its FBS debut with one season in the WAC in 2012.
“This historic moment belongs to our coaches, staff, student-athletes, fans, alumni and students,” Coryell said. “As the Pac-12’s flagship school in Texas, we proudly embrace the opportunity and responsibility that comes with it.”
The long-awaited announcement comes on the heels of the Pac-12’s announcement last week that it had finalized a five-year agreement with CBS for a portion of the conference’s football and men’s basketball media rights, including both sports’ championship game. Additional media partners are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.
Texas State is located in San Marcos, which is only about 35 miles south of the University of Texas in Austin. Texas State has more than 40,000 students, with one of the 25 largest undergraduate enrollments among public universities in the U.S.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Alabama’s 2026 recruiting class landed another significant late-June recruiting boost Saturday when four-star defender Xavier Griffin, ESPN’s No. 3 outside linebacker, announced his commitment to the Crimson Tide over Florida State, Ohio State and Texas.
Griffin, a versatile, 6-foot-4, 205-pound prospect from Gainesville, Georgia, is the No. 30 overall recruit in the 2026 ESPN 300. A former longtime USC commit, Griffin took official visits with each of his finalists in June. He now stands as the top-ranked prospect among 14 commits in Alabama’s incoming class, joining days after the program secured top 300 pledges from running back Ezavier Crowell (No. 31 overall) and tight end Mack Sutter (No. 138) on Thursday night.
Griffin told ESPN that the Crimson Tide’s pedigree and vision laid out by Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer and outside linebackers coach Christian Robinson were driving factors in his decision.
“Growing up, just seeing them, all the draft picks and stuff that they’ve had — all the guys they’ve put in the league — it speaks for itself,” Griffin said. “They have history and they’re really clear about what they’re trying to build with this new staff.”
A physical defender capable of dropping into coverage, Griffin has cemented his status as one the nation’s top linebackers at Gainesville (Georgia) High School, where he’s recorded 97 total tackles and 21 sacks across his sophomore and junior seasons.
He initially committed to USC last July and remained one of the Trojans’ top prospects over next 10 months before Griffin pulled his pledge from the program on May 14. Sources told ESPN at the time that Griffin’s decommitment stemmed from his intention to schedule official visits with programs this spring, bucking against USC’s policy against committed players taking official trips to other campuses.
Upon reopening his recruitment, Griffin locked in official visits with Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State and Texas for this month, closing with a trip to the Crimson Tide from June 20-22. Despite his lengthy USC pledge, Griffin told ESPN that no program recruited him more actively than Alabama across the past two years, led by Robinson, the program’s second-year assistant.
“He’s been one of the most consistent with me throughout my whole process,” Griffin said. “He’s just a really, really good guy.”
The highest-ranked of seven ESPN 300 pledges bound for Alabama in 2026, Griffin now leads an increasingly talented Crimson Tide defensive class forming in the current cycle.
Alongside Griffin, Alabama holds commitments from top-10 cornerbacks Jorden Edmonds (No. 38 overall) and Zyan Gibson (No. 65) in 2026. Defensive end Jamarion Matthews, Griffin’s teammate at Gainesville High School and ESPN’s No. 92 overall recruit, has been pledged to the Crimson Tide since February, and Alabama’s latest defensive class could get even deeper over the next month as priority targets including top-60 prospects Jireh Edwards, Anthony Jones and Nolan Wilson approach the final stages of their recruiting processes.