{"id":813381,"date":"2026-09-24T21:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-09-24T21:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/813381\/"},"modified":"2026-09-24T21:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T21:05:16","slug":"pirates-beat-the-cardinals-2-1-to-secure-their-first-non-losing-season-since-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/813381\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates beat the Cardinals 2-1 to secure their first non-losing season since 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"

PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Ronny Simon<\/a> raced home on Spencer Horwitz’s<\/a> eighth inning sacrifice fly and the Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> assured themselves of the club’s first non-losing season in eight years with a 2-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Simon reached on a walk by Ryne Stanek<\/a> (2-3), advanced to second on a wild pitch and scooted to third when the throw from catcher Ivan Herrera<\/a> skipped into center field for an error. Horwitz’s flyball to center was plenty deep enough for Simon to score.<\/p>\n

Luke Weaver (4-1) got the final out of the eighth for Pittsburgh. Mason Montgomery<\/a> struck out the side in the ninth for his 17th save in 19 chances as Pittsburgh improved to 81-78 with three games to go. The club’s previous non-losing season came in 2018 when it won 82 games.<\/p>\n

Reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes<\/a> ended an uneven year by his standards with 6 1\/3 excellent innings in his 32nd and final start. <\/p>\n

The 24-year-old, whose performance this year has been met with mild criticism locally, allowed one run, three hits and two walks and six strikeouts. He received a loud ovation when he was removed by manager Don Kelly after recording his 200th strikeout of the season when Cardinals designated hitter Leo Bernal<\/a> was caught looking leading off the seventh.<\/p>\n

Skenes became just the second pitcher in the franchise’s 145-year history to reach 200 strikeouts in consecutive seasons. He finished 10-11 with a 3.82 ERA, nearly double the MLB<\/a>-leading 1.97 ERA he posted in 2025.<\/p>\n

St. Louis fell to 77-82, assured of consecutive losing seasons for the first time since the shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons.<\/p>\n

Alec Burleson<\/a> hit his 24th homer of the season in the first inning for the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

The Cardinals wrap up the season with a three-game set at NL Central champion Milwaukee while Pittsburgh heads to Detroit to face the Tigers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PITTSBURGH (AP) \u2014 Ronny Simon raced home on Spencer Horwitz’s eighth inning sacrifice fly and the Pittsburgh Pirates…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[1894,5,160,76469,6012,97605,19,1097,4,877,64,10097,8653,950,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":["post-813381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-louis-cardinals","tag-alec-burleson","tag-baseball","tag-cardinals","tag-event_recap","tag-ivan-herrera","tag-leo-bernal","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mason-montgomery","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-ronny-simon","tag-ryne-stanek","tag-spencer-horwitz","tag-st-louis","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-stlouis","tag-stlouiscardinals"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117328053730052929","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}