Paul Skenes’ scoreless streak ends with a Pirates gut punch in loss to Cardinals

The Pittsburgh Pirates desperately needed a stopper Thursday afternoon at PNC Park. Instead, even Paul Skenes could not stop the bleeding.

The St. Louis Cardinals completed a four-game sweep with a 10-5 win over the Pirates, extending Pittsburgh’s losing streak to five games and sending them into May at an even 16-16. For a team that spent the first month of the season trying to convince fans this year would be different, this was a brutal way to close April.

And perhaps most jarring of all, the unraveling came with Skenes on the mound. The Pirates ace entered the afternoon carrying the longest active scoreless innings streak in Major League Baseball at 16 innings. Isaac Mattson, one of the few bright spots in Pittsburgh’s bullpen early this season, had the second-longest streak at 15.1 innings.

By the end of the game, both streaks were gone. So was any momentum the Pirates hoped to salvage from this homestand.

Skenes battled through five laborious innings, throwing a season-high 102 pitches while allowing seven hits and five runs, four earned. He struck out nine, flashing the overpowering stuff that continues to make him an early Cy Young frontrunner, but this outing never felt fully under control.

The Cardinals consistently forced deep counts, spoiled pitches, and capitalized on mistakes. Skenes ended up allowing a career-high eight hits, and while not all of the damage was entirely on him, it was the kind of grind-it-out outing that showed even elite arms can only carry a struggling team so far.

Pitching, defensive woes plague Pirates (again) in loss to Cardinals

The cruel part for the Pirates is that Skenes actually gave them chances to stay in the game.

Instead, defensive lapses and missed opportunities kept surfacing. Mattson’s rough seventh inning effectively slammed the door shut, though the inning might have looked very different had Bryan Reynolds secured a routine lineout instead of losing it in the lights before the rally spiraled.

Mattson walked two and allowed five runs, marking his first genuinely ugly appearance of the season. Still, asking perfection from every reliever every night is unrealistic when the entire team is playing sloppy baseball.

The Pirates were outplayed in every facet during this series. The offense disappeared in key moments. The defense cracked at costly times. The bullpen finally showed signs of fatigue. Even Skenes, who has looked nearly untouchable for much of April, could not overcome all of it.

A month ago, the Pirates opened the season looking energized and opportunistic. They enter May searching for answers instead.

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