By MATT PIKE
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 at PNC Park.
Skenes fell to 0-5 in his career against the Cardinals after allowing five runs, four earned, in five innings. 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, giving the Cardinals a 3-0 lead after the first inning.
St. Louis extended its lead adding a run in the third inning on a Nolan Gorman RBI single, driving in Alec Burleson. In the bottom of the fourth, the Pirates cut into the deficit with a bases loaded walk to Spencer Horwitz driving in Bryan Reynolds, cutting the lead to 4-1 at the end of four innings.
The Cardinals got a run back in the fifth inning as Burleson hit an RBI single, bringing in Wetherholt who opened the inning with a single. In the bottom half though, Pittsburgh continued attempting to chip away at the lead adding two more runs, an RBI double from Reynolds scoring Jake Magnum and Oneil Cruz, making it 5-3 at the end of the fifth.
After the Pirates cut the lead to one in the bottom of the seventh inning, a solo home run from Brandon Lowe making it 5-4, the Cardinals broke things open in the eighth inning with a five run inning. After singles from Gorman and Masyn Winn opened the inning, Nathan Church hit a two-run double, driving in both. Church later scored with the bases loaded on a two RBI single by Burleson, also bringing home Victor Scott II. A single by Walker drove in Iván Herrera for the final Redbirds run.
Lowe drove in the final Pirates run in the ninth inning with an RBI double, bringing home Cruz, before Matt Svanson got the final two outs of the inning to end the game. Gordon Graceffo won in relief, improving to 2-0, 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.
At the plate for St. Louis, Burleson was 3-for-5 with three RBI's. Wetherholt was 2-for-4 with the home run and an RBI while Walker was 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI's.
Next, St. Louis will return to Busch Stadium to welcome in the Los Angeles Dodgers for a weekend series starting tomorrow. Matthew Liberatore (0-1, 4.75 ERA, 19K's) starts the series for the Cardinals against Emmet Sheehan (2-0, 4.78 ERA, 28K's) for the Dodgers. First pitch is at 7:15pm, pregame will begin around 7:05 on KY 102 (102.5FM).
You can follow Matt on X @KfeqMatt.