Paul Skenes gives up career-high 5 runs as Cardinals beat Pirates to even series

The St. Louis Cardinals proved Paul Skenes is human, after all.

The Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander, the 2024 NL Rookie of the Year and 2025 Cy Young favorite, surrendered the most earned runs of his 26 career starts as the Cardinals did all of their damage in two innings.

The Cardinals tagged Skenes for three runs in the third inning and two more in the sixth for a 5-3 win Tuesday night before 8,291 at PNC Park. It exceeded Skenes’ previous high of four runs allowed in a 4-1 loss at the Los Angeles Dodgers on Aug. 10.

“You kind of just got to tip your cap to them a little bit,” Skenes said. “It’s not something I’m going to lose any sleep over. It’s just, it’s the game. They’re big leaguers. This is their fourth time seeing me. That’s just sort of how it goes. Got to tip your cap. They just executed a little better than I did today.”

A night after setting season highs with eight runs on 10 hits, the Pirates lacked a counterpunch against the Cardinals. The teams meet at 12:35 p.m. Wednesday in the three-game series finale.

Skenes (1-1) recorded seven strikeouts against six hits and one walk while throwing 63 of his 98 pitches for strikes over six innings. He retired 12 of 13 batters in the other four innings, with the only baserunner reaching on a throwing error by shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa in the fourth.

Skenes cruised through the first two innings, throwing 19 of his 24 pitches for strikes, before giving up three runs on four hits in the third. Pedro Pages singled to right and Masyn Winn to left, and both scored when Victor Scott II smacked a triple to center field for a 2-0 lead. Brendan Donovan singled to left to drive in Scott to make it 3-0.

“They just got to a couple pitches,” Skenes said. “It’s not like they hit the ball into the river or anything like that. They just found some holes, and I got behind in some counts and kind of let them get good swings off and they found holes. Not going to sweat it. It is what it is.”

Bryan Reynolds led off the fourth inning by drilling Sonny Gray’s 3-1 sinker 391 feet to right field for his second home run to cut the deficit to 3-1. It was the lone run allowed by Gray (2-0), who held the Pirates to three hits and no walks while striking out four in five innings.

The Cardinals tagged Skenes for two more runs in the sixth. Brendan Donovan led off with a double to right-center, advanced to third when Skenes walked Nolan Arenado on a full-count wild pitch that skipped past catcher Endy Rodriguez.

“The ball that got by him,” Skenes said, “was 100% on me.”

Donovan scored on a single to right by Alec Burleson, and Arenado scored on a Pages groundout to second to make it 5-1.

Where Skenes relied on his bread-and-butter pitches in his previous start — throwing the four-seam fastball 48 times and the splinker 30 times out of 102 pitches against Tampa Bay — he was more liberal with his seven-pitch mix against the Cardinals. Skenes threw only 30 four-seamers at an average of 97.6 mph, with 27 splinkers and 18 sweepers.

Pirates manager Derek Shelton said Skenes didn’t locate some of his pitches, leaving them over the plate for the Cardinals to make contact.

“It looked like they had a pretty good approach off him,” Shelton said. “But, I mean, we usually don’t see him leave that many balls in the middle of the plate, especially up. I think that’s what got to him a little bit.”

The Pirates staged a late rally in the ninth, when Alexander Canario hit a sharp grounder that skipped past 10-time Gold Glove third baseman Arenado for a single and Reynolds followed with a double off the left-field wall to put runners on second and third with no outs.

Andrew McCutchen, pinch-hitting for Oneil Cruz against lefty JoJo Romero, recorded his 1,100th RBI with a groundout to short that scored Canario to cut it to 5-2. The Cardinals turned to righty Phil Maton, who struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes but gave up a two-out double down the left-field line to Joey Bart that brought in Reynolds to make it 5-3. But it ended with Jordan Walker making a running catch on Tommy Pham’s line drive to right field to end the game.

Shelton isn’t too concerned about how Skenes will respond to his first loss of the season — and first since a 4-0 loss at St. Louis last Sept. 16 — because of his mental makeup.

“We haven’t seen a lot of rough ones,” Shelton said. “But everything that has been on his plate, he’s handled very well. I expect him to come out the next time and be what we expect.”