How Paul Skenes helped Shota Imanaga dominate the Majors as a rookie

Amid a stellar rookie campaign, Paul Skenes mistakenly took the time to bestow some of his knowledge on fellow National League stud Shota Imanaga.

It turns out that the advice came back to bite Skenes and his Pittsburgh Pirates soon after. At the All-MLB Awards show in Las Vegas, the right-hander revealed a humorous story of how he assisted Imanaga — the Chicago Cubs rookie star — with a fastball pitch grip. Days following that conversation, the Japanese lefty diced through Pittsburgh's lineup.

"I regret this one a little bit," Skenes said. "Shota came up to me when we were in Pittsburgh and he asked me how I held my fastball. And not my sinker. And so I was like, 'Yeah, here you go dude, like, whatever, check it out.' "

"And then he no-hit us his next outing. I don't know if he was throwing my fastball or not," Skenes continued.

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Imanaga owes Skenes after a no-hit outing against the Pirates in early September

How ironic is that? On Sept. 4 (seven days after Chicago finished up a series in Pennsylvania) Imanaga cut through the Pirates lineup like a buzz saw, recording seven strikeouts and two walks in seven no-hit innings within the friendly confines of Wrigley Field. That was in fact his best outing of the season if you're going off of game score, per Baseball Reference. Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge went on to pitch the eighth and ninth innings in relief of the rookie, en route to the franchise's 18th no-hitter.

Let's go even deeper into that performance. Imanaga tossed 42 fastballs — the pitch he asked Skenes about a week prior. That was more than any other pitch — eight more than his splitter. Only four were considered "hit hard" according to Baseball Savant.

Through his interpreter Edwin Stanberry, Imanaga gave his take at the star studded event.

"Maybe looking back ... The reason I had a good game was maybe that talk we had," he said.

Skenes and Imanaga, who both ended up on the MLB First and Second Teams respectively, were two of just six NL pitchers with an earned run average under 2.94 to go along with a minimum of three fWAR.