St. Louis Cardinals' Jordan Walker, right, watches his two-run home run off Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes (30) during the first inning of a baseball game in Pittsburgh, Thursday, April 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

PITTSBURGH — JJ Wetherholt led off with a home run against Pirates ace Paul Skenes, and the St. Louis Cardinals finished off a four-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 10-5 win on Thursday.

Skenes (4-2) fell to 0-5 against the Cardinals after allowing five runs, four earned, in five innings. The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner’s brilliant April finished with a rare dud, as Pittsburgh’s losing streak hit five.

The 23-year-old had been masterful after a shaky performance on opening day, allowing only three runs over his last five starts. The Cardinals matched that in the first inning alone.

Wetherholt, who grew up in the Pittsburgh suburbs, sent a cutter into the right-field seats three pitches into the game. Jordan Walker followed three batters later by turning on a sweeper that scraped over the left-field wall, marking just the second time in Skenes’ 62 big league starts that he surrendered multiple homers in the same inning.

Alec Burleson finished with three hits and drove in three runs for the Cardinals. Wetherholt, Walker, Nolan Gorman, and Pedro Pages had two hits each. Nathan Church added a two-run double during a five-run eighth to give the Cardinals some breathing room after the Pirates had cut a four-run deficit to one.

“I think that sometimes teams go up there, try to work his pitch count, try to get that up,” Pirates manager Don Kelly said in discussing the Cardinals game plan against Skenes. “It doesn’t seem to be the case. They’re going up there swinging and trying to get their swing off. Sometimes the stuff is so good that he gets into foul ball wars because it’s harder to put in play. But they put some good swings on the ball today.”

Gordon Graceffo (2-0) won in relief of starter Hunter Dobbins, who didn’t make it out of the fifth inning in his first major league start since tearing the ACL in his right knee last summer while playing for Boston. Dobbins was acquired in December’s trade that sent Willson Contreras to the Red Sox.

“Definitely at the beginning of the outing for sure … just didn’t have the best command of everything in those first couple innings,” Skenes said. “Settled in a little bit and they did a pretty good job the last few innings. Just had to grind through it.”

Bryan Reynolds had two hits and drove in three runs for the Pirates. Brandon Lowe hit his eighth homer for Pittsburgh, which played sloppy defense behind Skenes to head into May with its promising start to the season in danger of slipping away.

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