Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes is a generational talent who keeps getting better. He took the league by storm in his rookie year last season when he went 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA and was an easy pick for the National League’s Rookie of the Year Award. As a 22-year-old coming into his sophomore season, the sky truly is the limit for the dominant righty.

Unless he is facing the St. Louis Cardinals, that is.

On Tuesday night, the Cardinals extended their winning streak to four games while the Pirates continued their free fall in the other direction as their losing streak pushed to six in a row. Skenes has lost a total of seven games in his professional career. Four of those have come at the hands of the Cardinals. He pitched well on Tuesday when he only gave up two runs, but it was not good enough as he was outdueled by resurgent starter Matthew Liberatore.

Matthew Liberatore’s 2025 season was filled with question marks coming into the spring after he had a great year prior working out of the bullpen. It seemed as if he would fulfill that role once again until he dominated the spring season while competing for a starting role. He was rewarded for his performance by being named the fifth starter as the Cardinals headed north to begin the regular season.

Liberatore, who was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in the Randy Arozarena deal, had not lived up to the prospect hype when he was seen as a future front of the rotation starter with a solid fastball and elite breaking ball. In his first three seasons with the Cardinals, the lefty struggled to find a consistent role, being moved back and forth from Memphis as well as fluctuating between a starter and reliever. In his three seasons with the team, did not have an ERA below 4.40 and struggled to maintain his command between outings.

All of that has changed in 2025 as Liberatore has found success with a consistent starting role. In seven starts this year, the former top prospect has thrown at least six innings in six of them, with the only start not reaching that mark was a three-inning outing that was shortened by a rain delay. Wednesday’s performance was his best of the year.

In his fifth quality start of the year, Liberatore threw seven innings for the first time this season and struck out a season-high eight batters on the way to his third win. In the outing, the lefty only gave up one run, who scored after yet another botched replay when it appeared ONeill Cruz was caught stealing but the umpires decided otherwise and ruled him safe. Cruz scored on a single by the next batter. Liberatore was unfazed, however, as he worked around three hits and three walks to win the pitching matchup. On the season, he now has a 3-3 record and a 3.07 ERA to go along with career-best strikeout and walk rates. The peripherals show he may actually be a bit unlucky this year as his FIP is a low 2.30.

It looked like Libby may have been staring at another tough-luck loss until the Cardinals offense finally broke through against Skenes in the 6th inning. With two outs, Nolan Arenado singled and the sizzling hot Willson Contreras drew a walk to bring up Alec Burleson. Burleson, who had struggled most of the season, homered in two straight games and has the most hits an out of any hitter against Skenes. Burleson added to that total with a huge two-run double to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead headed into the seventh. The big lefty now has six hits (.400 batting average) and four RBIs against Skenes in his career.

With the backend of the Cardinals bullpen unavailable for the game, Liberatore was sent back out for the seventh and worked around a single to end his day with a 99-pitch, one-run performance. He handed the ball to Steven Matz, who has been moved back to the bullpen full-time, and the veteran lefty kept the Pirates off the board I. The eighth. The biggest question would be who would take the ninth inning and manager Oli Marmol decided to roll the dice with rookie Gordon Graceffo, who was just recalled to take the place of Michael McGreevy. Graceffo answered the call with a 1-2-3 ninth inning, setting down the Pirates on six pitches.

The win guarantees the Cardinals their fourth series win in a row and they will look to complete the sweep and jump back to an even .500 in Wednesday’s series finale. First pitch is scheduled for 12:15pm CST.