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After losing seven of their first nine games, the Pittsburgh Pirates have won two in a row and will have ace Paul Skenes on the mound when they host the struggling St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night.

Skenes (1-0, 1.46 ERA), last year’s National League Rookie of the Year, will make his third start of the season, opposing veteran Sonny Gray (1-0, 5.73 ERA) in the second game of a three-game series.

Gray will try to help the Cardinals snap a four-game losing streak, as they dropped the Monday opener 8-4 at Pittsburgh following three consecutive road losses against the Boston Red Sox.

Even before the Pirates reversed their fortunes a bit with back-to-back wins over the New York Yankees on Sunday and the Cardinals on Monday, Skenes went to bat for his team away from the field.

Skenes shifted the blame to Pirates players for their early-season struggles following fans’ chants of “Sell the Team” on Opening Day directed at owner Bob Nutting.

“Mr. Nutting and (manager Derek Shelton) aren’t the ones playing,” Skenes told ESPN. “We’re the ones playing. If we were 8-0 through however many games we’ve played right now, the fans aren’t booing. We’ve got to play better.”

Pittsburgh scored a season-high eight runs on Monday night against the Cardinals after pulling out a 5-4 extra-inning win over the Yankees the day before.

Skenes will try to keep the momentum going after tossing seven innings and allowing just one run, which was unearned, in his most recent start on Wednesday at Tampa Bay. Skenes struck out six and gave up three hits and no walks.

As good as Skenes has been so far in his career, he has yet to earn a win against the Cardinals, going 0-2 in three career starts despite having a 1.31 ERA over 20 2/3 innings.

Gray, who is 5-4 with a 4.20 ERA in 12 career appearances (11 starts) against the Pirates, will try to turn the tide for St. Louis. The Cardinals have won both of his starts so far this season, despite some uneven results.

St. Louis backed him up at the plate in his most recent outing on Wednesday against the Los Angeles Angels, when Gray gave up five runs on five hits including two home runs over six-plus innings. Gray, however, struck out nine and did not issue a walk. St. Louis’ bullpen limited the damage in that game and the Cardinals emerged with a 12-5 win.

Gray, the Cardinals’ Opening Day starter, has 15 strikeouts over 11 innings, but has allowed seven runs and three homers.

“This is the worst type of day when you feel amazing and the ball is coming out the way you want it to do, you feel dominant for one inning and then you go to have a shutdown and four hits later, you give up four runs,” Gray said after the Wednesday contest.

The Cardinals will hope to jumpstart their offense, which ranks second in the majors with an .851 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. St. Louis is hitting .297 as a team (tops in the major leagues) and is averaging 6.6 runs per game through its first 10 games (second in the majors).

Masyn Winn and Yohel Pozo each homered for the Cardinals in the Monday loss, and Brendan Donovan had three hits.

–Field Level Media