Cardinals score in 9th to beat Pirates, hand rookie Paul Skenes his 1st loss

The crowd roared when Paul Skenes took the mound for the ninth inning, chanting “M-V-P!” as the Pittsburgh Pirates gave the rookie phenom a chance to pitch the first complete game of his major-league career.

In his first start since the All-Star Game, Skenes showed ruthless efficiency and made only one mistake — surrendering a solo home run to Nolan Arenado in the fifth inning — so the move made sense.

Then the St. Louis Cardinals won a challenge to overturn a call and put Michael Siani in position to score on Alec Burleson’s single to right for a 2-1 win over the Pirates on Tuesday night before 32,422 at PNC Park.

It was the first career loss for Skenes (6-1), who allowed two runs on four hits and eight strikeouts without a walk while throwing 78 of his 104 pitches for strikes in 81⁄3 innings.

“He threw the ball really well,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He threw two bad pitches in the whole game: The bad breaking ball to Arenado and, I mean the pitch to Siani wasn’t even a bad pitch. It was a good piece of hitting, and then he threw an 0-2 pitch to Burleson and ended up right down the middle.”

The Cardinals (53-48) increased their lead over the Pirates (51-50) to two games for both second place in the NL Central and the wild-card standings. The Pirates’ anemic offense gave Skenes a small margin, twice leaving the bases loaded in stranding seven baserunners.

“Yeah, definitely we needed to score more runs to support him,” said Pirates second baseman Nick Gonzales, who had their lone RBI. “He did his job like he does every time he pitches. So, for sure, we need to do a better job and put more runs on the board.”

Skenes shrugged, saying, “Just got to execute pitches a little finer.”

His execution was fine early, as he got seven of his 11 groundouts in the first four innings.

The Pirates put Cardinals starter Lance Lynn in a tight spot in the second, when Rowdy Tellez drew a four-pitch walk, Jack Suwinski hit a two-out single to left and Yasmani Grandal lined a comebacker off Lynn’s leg for an infield single to load the bases. Lynn got Andrew McCutchen to pop up to shallow center to escape the jam.

After Skenes retired the first seven batters he faced, Nolan Gorman hit a soft grounder up the middle past Skenes with one out in the third inning. Gonzales made a backhand stop but his wide throw pulled first baseman Rowdy Tellez off the bag, and Gorman was credited with a single.

That ended Skenes’ streak of nine consecutive no-hit innings, dating to his July 11 start at the Milwaukee Brewers (the All-Star Game doesn’t count toward official records). It was the longest hitless streak by a Pirates pitcher since Mitch Keller tossed 11 consecutive from Sept. 19-25, 2020.

Siani battled through a 10-pitch at-bat, including five foul balls, before Skenes got him swinging at a 95-mph splinker for a strikeout. Masyn Winn then grounded into a forceout to end the frame.

In the fifth, Skenes surrendered his first run in 14 innings when he left a curveball over the middle and Arenado drove it 385 feet and over the outstretched glove of left fielder Bryan Reynolds for a leadoff home run to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

“It’s one pitch,” Skenes said. “Maybe it wasn’t the right pitch to throw there. I executed it well. He’s a really good hitter. He’s a Hall of Famer. So that stuff’s going to happen. It’s just about getting back and executing.”

Skenes did just that, responding by getting Lars Nootbaar swinging on a splinker, Paul Goldschmidt on a slider and Gorman looking at a 98.3-mph fastball for a called third strike on his way to retiring 12 consecutive batters.

In the bottom of the fifth, Suwinski hit a leadoff double to right, Bryan Reynolds drew a four-pitch walk with two outs and Oneil Cruz worked a full-count walk to load the bases. But Gonzales hit a dribbler down the third-base line, and Cardinals catcher Willson Contreras threw him out at first to leave the runners stranded again.

“I think the key to the game was we had opportunities to score, and we didn’t get a big hit,” Shelton said. “We had bases loaded twice, we had a runner at second and not outs, so, yeah, the key to the game was the fact that we did not execute.

“It’s frustrating. We have to capitalize. When we have the bases loaded, we have to have better swings. We have to capitalize in those situations and we didn’t. That ultimately ended up being the deciding factor in the game.”

Skenes required 11 pitches or fewer in five of his first seven innings, needing only seven pitches (all strikes) to navigate the seventh, and 13 pitches in the eighth.

Even so, the Pirates struggled to score. When Connor Joe pinch-hit for Suwinski in the seventh and hit a leadoff single off lefty John King, the Cardinals turned to righty Andrew Kittredge, who got Grandal to ground into a 1-6-3 double play and struck out McCutchen.

Skenes gained steam in the eighth, striking out Nootbaar and Goldschmidt to extend his franchise-record string of games with seven or more strikeouts to nine consecutive. That tied the major-league rookie record set by Dwight Gooden in 1984 and tied by Brandon Beachy in 2011. Skenes then fired a 100.8-mph fastball on his 91st pitch to get Gorman to fly out to left for the third out.

That got the crowd going, and the Pirates capitalized on the momentum shift when Oneil Cruz hit a fly ball that dropped in shallow center for a double and Gonzales drove him in with a single to left to tie it at 1-1. But pinch hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning.

The ninth was a missed opportunity. Siani fouled off a pair of two-strike pitches, including a curveball that would have been a third strike but skipped off catcher Yasmani Grandal’s mitt. Siani followed by hitting a sharp grounder down the left-field line, only to be called out at second on Reynolds’ throw to Gonzales. The Cardinals challenged, however, and it was overturned after review. Siani advanced to third on Winn’s groundout to second then scored on Burleson’s single to right for a 2-1 lead.

That was it for Skenes, who was replaced by Carmen Mlodzinski. Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley struck out the side to clinch his 33rd save as St. Louis spoiled another standout performance by Skenes, who has drawn the baseball world’s attention to Pittsburgh.

“It was awesome, especially on a Tuesday night,” Skenes said. “Kind of just shows where we’re at as a team, where the city’s at — just really, really cool. Obviously wish I could have finished it. It was a cool moment.”