Cardinals get to Skenes early, sweep Pirates 10-5

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.

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.



(AP Photo Gene J. Puskar)