ST. LOUIS – Kyle Leahy, the starting pitcher-turned-reliever-turned-starter again, saw his first start of the 2026 season for the Cardinals filled with highs and low in a 4-2 loss to the Mets on Monday night.

One reason the Cardinals are pinning such high hopes on the 28-year-old right-hander is based more on the space between Leahy’s ears than the stuff coming out of his hands.

“From an aptitude standpoint, and making quicker adjustments, he understands that there’s a process to learning from each outing and making the changes needed to be better,” said Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol of Leahy, who took the loss in a game highlighted by the home run power of Nolan Gorman. “He has enough pitches, but more importantly he has the aptitude and demeanor to learn from his outings and use the feedback given to him to incorporate it in the next time out.”

Leahy’s smarts and maturity are two of the reasons that they thought he could handle the transition from the bullpen to a starting role in 2026. Also, there’s a strong belief that going forward he will be better than he was on Monday night, when he flashed signs of potential greatness while limiting the Mets star-studded lineup to just two runs and six hits over his first five innings of work. He appeared to physically hit the wall in the sixth inning when he yielded two more hits and was tagged for another two runs long after departing the game, but Leahy saw Monday as a good place to build from going forward.

“There was some good and some bad, but ultimately I didn’t pitch well enough for us to win the game and that’s the goal at the end of the day,” said Leahy, whose arsenal of six pitches helped him record nine outs on the ground. “(Fading in the sixth inning) is part of the transition of my body getting used to (starting) again. I felt really good early and I pitched not with my best stuff, but I still competed as hard as I could. It’s just a (stamina) build up thing and hopefully I’ll be better with that as the year goes on.”

Leahy’s toughness got tested right off the bat on Monday when Mets superstar Francisco Lindor opened the game by smoking a 2-2 changeup off the wall in right-center for a triple. From there, Leahy limited the damage by keeping Juan Soto, Bo Bichette and Jorge Polanco on the ground for outs.

In the third, Leahy was able to pitch around a Juan Soto single by inducing a double-play grounder from Bichette. In the fourth, he pitched around a leadoff double by Polanco and he again limited the damage to just one run in a fifth inning that could have gone sideways.

“I thought he weas really strong in those first five innings and he can walk away from this one knowing that his (pitch) mix is plenty good enough and his preparation showed,” Marmol raved. “I think he’s in a really good spot.”

The spot where Leahy found himself late Monday night was jump-starting the deep-dive from the outing and beginning the preparation for his next start – likely on Sunday in Detroit against the Tigers. Leahy’s ability to digest and outing and spit out better results in the next outing will be key for him, he said.

“Between innings, I was going over (each hitter) with (pitching coach) Dusty (Blake), so I’ve sort of already gone over the whole game,” Leahy said. “In this moment now, it’s about eating something good and recovering as well as I can so that next time out, I can maintain (stamina) better throughout the outing.

“But, yes, I’ll go back and look at all the little things from the outing. Id didn’t control counts as well as I could have. First pitches of innings I struggled with, which is really odd. So, I’ll address all those things and assess if I need to do something different between innings. I look at everything.”  

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