Burleson continues success against Skenes, finally homers off Pirates ace

PITTSBURGH -- Paul Skenes isn’t going to sneak much past Alec Burleson.

Entering a matchup against the Pittsburgh ace Thursday, Burleson had Skenes’ number across 21 career plate appearances, going 8-for-20 with a walk. But within that success, he’d only logged one extra-base hit and no homers against Skenes.

That changed quickly on Thursday afternoon at PNC Park.

Averaging 96.8 mph on his four-seam fastball this season -- which is down 1.4 mph from the 98.2 mph average velocity of the pitch in 2025 -- Skenes tried to put a first-pitch heater past Burleson. The reigning NL utility Silver Slugger doesn’t mind those pitches at the top of the zone, and he was ready for it.

He hammered the 95.9-mph pitch for his 24th home run of the season, accruing his Major League-leading 113th RBI. His swing, though, produced the only run the Cardinals mustered against Pirate pitching in a 2-1 loss.

Aside from Burleson’s blast, the half-baked narrative of the Cardinals’ dominance over Skenes -- the phenom is 0-5 lifetime against the Cardinals despite a 2.74 ERA entering Thursday’s start -- was tested.

Skenes permitted the long ball to Burleson and a double off the base of the right-field wall to JJ Wetherholt, but not much else in his final start of the season. The 24-year-old fired 6 1/3 innings, striking out eight batters to just five total baserunners.

He remained in the game just long enough to secure his 200th strikeout, but departing a tied game in the seventh meant he would remain winless in his career against St. Louis.

The Pirates scored the game-sealing run on a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the eighth after Iván Herrera sailed a throw into center field trying to prevent Ronny Simon from advancing on a Ryne Stanek wild pitch.

Instead of Herrera pocketing the ball, Simon was able to move up to third base on the throwing error.

“He’s well aware of what that play needs to look like,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said.

Marmol told reporters before Thursday’s game that Kyle Leahy might see even a shorter duration on the mound than the limitations under which he has operated in recent weeks. The Cardinals wanted to curate his workload down the stretch, mindful of the increased demand on the body of a pitcher who logged just 88 innings in 2025.

Leahy, indeed, recorded just six outs to land at 140 innings on the season tally. He was replaced for the third inning by his piggyback partner, rookie left-hander Cooper Hjerpe.

For Leahy, Thursday marked the conclusion of his successful venture into life as a big league starter. Following a relentless pursuit of self-improvement for these many months, this is the part of the calendar that gives Leahy the most trouble.

“I mean, I feel good, but the end of the year is weird. It always is,” Leahy said. “I’m already looking forward to next year.”

Hjerpe was strong in what will amount to his final appearance of 2026, logging 3 1/3 innings of scoreless baseball to conclude his debut season with a 4.38 ERA in the big leagues.

After coming into the year by wrapping up his rehab from Tommy John surgery, Hjerpe made a leap in 2026 that could propel him into the next step of his career.

“It’s a dream come true,” Hjerpe said. “To be putting up zeros for a big league club is a win in my eyes, for a full season.”

The type of spot that Marmol had been seeking for further evaluation of another rookie left-hander, Brycen Mautz, came in a tight spot in the seventh inning.

Beginning the season as a starter in Triple-A, Mautz had a brief cup of coffee with St. Louis in May, but hasn’t seen many moments of leverage since converting to a relief role for his late-season stint with the club.

Thursday, he got the chance to face middle-order threats Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn with the game on the line -- and the Cardinals got the chance to see what that looked like.

Mautz struck out Lowe and got O’Hearn to fly out to end the inning.

“Normally, we go to [Justin] Bruihl or [George Soriano] there, right?” Marmol said. “But that was an opportunity to do exactly what I said I was hoping to do at the beginning of this series. We did it with [Cade] Winquest and then, being able to give Mautz a taste of that is important as you go into an off-season.”