ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The St. Louis Cardinals got their first chance to get a look against former No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes Tuesday night.
Skenes started for the Pittsburgh Pirates in their eventual 2-1 win against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium to kick off a three-game series. In his first start at Busch Stadium, he was excellent, pitching 6 1/3 innings and striking out eight batters. His performance earned him an ovation from Cardinals fans.
Despite a terrific start by Skenes, the Cardinals were able to rack up five hits against him and had opportunities to score runs against him, especially in the fifth inning where the Cardinals had runners on the corners with no outs, but were unable to bring either of them in.
"We had some opportunities, and took some good swings off of him," said Marmol on Total Information A.M. Wednesday. "We put some balls in play, he still punched out eight, but felt like we did a decent job for seeing him the first time. (Paul Goldschmidt) had some good swings, but drove the ball right at people. Pretty good at bats, but nothing to show for it."
While Skenes was excellent as advertised, Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas arguably outdueled him, pitching seven innings of shutout ball, allowing only two baserunners on and striking out six.
"He really did a nice job man, he was locating everything, mixed with some of his arm angles," said Marmol. "His sinker was good, he got a lot of just defensive swings, soft contact, navigated that lineup pretty well and more than gave us a shot."
The Cardinals will look to even the series Wednesday night against the Pirates. Sonny Gray will pitch for the Cardinals while the Pirates will have Bailey Flater on the mound. First pitch is set for 6:45 pm and you can listen to the game right here on KMOX.