The St. Louis Cardinals avoided being swept for their first time in 2026 by beating the Detroit Tigers 5-3 on Sunday Night Baseball. Kyle Leahy pitched 5 innings allowing 5 hits (1 home run to Kerry Carpenter), 2 runs, 4 strikeouts, and 3 walks. Leahy also got his 1st win as a starting pitcher (1-1).

Ivan Herrera gave the Cardinals a 4-2 lead with a 2 run RBI base hit in the top 5th (6 on the season). The Tigers were able to threaten with a sac fly from Javier Baez off of reliever George Soriano to make it 4-3 in the bottom 6th. In the top 8th, Nolan Gorman got a sac fly to score JJ Wetherholt, making it 5-3.

Soriano (1), JoJo Romero (3), and Ryne Stanek (2) all picked up holds. Riley O’Brien picked a scoreless 9th with 1 strikeout to pick up his 2nd save.

The Cardinals are now 5-4 and will head to Washington, DC to face the Nationals for a three-game series (Monday-Wednesday).

The starting pitching matchup are scheduled to be:

Andre Pallante (1-0), 0.00 ERA, 5 innings, 3 strikeouts, 5 walks, and a whip of 1.20 vs Zack Littell (0-1), 5.40 ERA, 5 innings, 1 strikeout, 2 walks, and a whip of 1.60.

Matthew Liberatore (0-0), 1.64 ERA, 11 innings, 4 strikeouts, 3 walks, and a whip of 1.18 vs Cade Cavalli (0-0), 2.79 ERA, 9.2 innings, 8 strikeouts, 5 walks, and a whip of 1.34.

Michael McGreevy (0-1), 2.53 ERA, 10.2 innings, 9 strikeouts, 2 walks, and a whip of 0.84 vs Miles Mikolas (0-2), 14.46 ERA, 9.1 innings, 8 strikeouts, 4 walks, and a whip of 2.25.