Cardinals fans' embarrassing Paul Skenes finally came back to haunt them

If you know anything at all about Major League Baseball, you know about Pittsburgh Pirates sensation Paul Skenes. If you're anything more than a casual fan, you are well aware that his win-loss record so far in the 2025 season is no indication of how good he has been. The same could be said for his career numbers against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Cardinals fans have had a lot of fun with the team's supposed dominance over their young divisional rival, winning all five of the games they've played against Skenes entering play on Tuesday night. But pointing out that Skenes is winless against St. Louis isn't some sort of flex: While Skenes is 0-4 in five starts against the Cardinals in his young career, he has a 2.76 ERA against them — and when you dig deeper into the statistics, St. Louis has just as hard of time hitting Skenes as the rest of the league does.

Skenes' career ERA against the Cardinals ahead of their rematch on Tuesday was, shockingly, almost a full half-run above his overall mark for his career. But batted-ball luck had plenty to do with that; his 0.857 WHIP allowed vs. St. Louis is actually his seventh-lowest against any opponent. Regression was finally on Skenes' side on Tuesday night, and he made the Cardinals offense look awfully mortal.

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Pirates did just enough to finally carry Paul Skenes over the line against the Cardinals

The biggest reason that Skenes has struggled to find wins against the Cardinals is the same reason he's struggled to find wins against everyone else: the downright pitiful run support his team is giving him every fifth day. But despite having a rough season, the Pittsburgh offense entered Tuesday on a hot streak, scoring at least seven runs in their last four games (including a 12-1 rout of the New York Mets over the weekend).

Pittsburgh crashed back to Earth a bit with Skenes back on the mound, because of course they did. The Pirates allowed St. Louis starter Andre Pallante to scatter just three baserunners across seven shutout innings. But Skenes matched that with five shutout innings of his own, and just when it looked like this might be yet another infuriating no-decision for one of the best pitchers on the planet, Pittsburgh found a way to scratch across a run, with Henry Davis' sac fly scoring Ke'Bryan Hayes for the decisive run in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Acting like they were Skenes' kryptonite was always going to come back to haunt the Cardinals. The righty didn't even have his sharpest stuff, unable to work efficiently or put St. Louis hitters away after getting ahead in the count. But he was still good enough to keep the Cardinals off the scoreboard, much like he has been ... most every other time they've faced off. The one difference this time is his bullpen and his lineup finally did just enough to give him the recognition (and the win) he's long deserved.