Cardinals get to Skenes early as St. Louis completes 4-game sweep in Pittsburgh with 10-5 victory

PITTSBURGH (AP) — JJ Wetherholt led off with a home run against Pirates ace Paul Skenes, and the St. Louis Cardinals finished off a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 10-5 win on Thursday.

Skenes (4-2) fell to 0-5 against the Cardinals after allowing five runs, four earned, in five innings. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner’s brilliant April finished with a rare dud, as Pittsburgh’s losing streak hit five.

The 23-year-old had been masterful after a shaky performance on opening day, allowing only three runs over his last five starts. The Cardinals matched that in the first inning alone.

Wetherholt, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, sent a cutter into the right-field seats three pitches into the game. Jordan Walker followed three batters later by turning on a sweeper that scraped over the left-field wall, marking just the second time in Skenes’ 62 big league starts that he surrendered multiple homers in the same inning.

Alec Burleson finished with three hits and drove in three runs for the Cardinals. Wetherholt, Walker, Nolan Gorman, and Pedro Pages had two hits each. Nathan Church added a two-run double during a five-run eighth to give the Cardinals some breathing room after the Pirates had cut a four-run deficit to one.

Gordon Graceffo (2-0) won in relief of starter Hunter Dobbins, who didn’t make it out of the fifth inning in his first major league start since tearing the ACL in his right knee last summer while playing for Boston. Dobbins was acquired in December’s trade that sent Willson Contreras to the Red Sox.

Bryan Reynolds had two hits and drove in three runs for the Pirates. Brandon Lowe hit his eighth homer for Pittsburgh, which played sloppy defense behind Skenes to head into May with its promising start to the season in danger of slipping away.

Up next

Cardinals: return home to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend.

Pirates: host NL Central rival Cincinnati to start a three-game weekend series on Friday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb