Skenes Shocker

S.Samek

The All-Star arm of Paul Skenes was back on display against St. Louis. He was making his first start after the all-star break. How would things go?

Well do you like actually getting to see him pitch? Cause he went a career high eight and a 1/3 innings. He gave up two runs on four hits with one of them being a solo home run to Nolan Arenado. He struck out eight hitters while throwing 104 pitches with 78 of them for strikes.

However, the bats hanging him out to dry and he gets his first career loss. They did tie the game with an RBI single from Nick Gonzales to score Oneil Cruz in the eighth inning. After the Cardinals pulled ahead on an RBI single by Alec Burleson to make it 2-1 a punchless ninth inning saw them strikeout in order to end the game.

This one stings as a first career loss. Though I think it’s a wakeup call to go out and get a bat at the trade deadline and to stop wasting pitching performances like these because you can’t score runs.

The Cardinals move to two games ahead of the Pirates with the win at 53-48, while the Pirates are 51-50 after the loss. Rubber match tomorrow at 12:35 ET with Martin Perez on the slab. Better hope the bats show up for him.