Cardinals Put Together Impressive Performance Against Paul Skenes

Over the offseason, the St. Louis Cardinals let a few of their stars walk away in free agency, practically waving the white flag on the 2025 season and entering a rebuild. Nobody expected the Cardinals to be much of anything this season, but their offense has carried the load quite a bit in the early stages of the season, leading to a 4-6 record through ten games.

Their lineup was slashing .297/.374/.477 with 16 home runs and 18 doubles heading into the Tuesday night matchup against the Pittsburgh Pirates and National League Cy Young favorite Paul Skenes. Many expected this game to be a sort of "fraud check" for the Cardinals lineup, but it was in fact the opposite.

Instead of Skenes dominating the Cardinals for the length of seven or eight shutout innings, St. Louis piled on six hits including two extra base hits across Skenes' six innings of work. The righty's final line was six innings, six hits allowed, five runs (five earned), one walk, and seven strikeouts.

Skenes looked like himself. The velocity was there. The command was there. The movement was there. But the Cardinals put together good at-bats and played a great game as a unit.

While nobody homered off Skenes, they didn't need to. The simple approach that led to some timely hits and a huge Victor Scott triple was enough to chase Skenes from the game after six innings.

While St. Louis may not have the pitching staff to be competitive this year, the lineup should have the fans pretty excited.