The Cardinals bats went silent on Saturday, but they got positive showings from rookie relievers Brycen Mautz (eight strikeouts) and Cade Winquest (two strikeouts) in a 6-2 loss to the Pirates. The Cards went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position.
A Cardinals club hoping to stay in the chase for the National League’s final Wild Card slot suffered a frustrating loss on Saturday at Busch Stadium, but in the process uncovered ways that a couple of rookie relievers might help fortify their overworked bullpen over the season’s final month.
The Cardinals lost 6-2 to the Pirates on Saturday largely because of the three-run homer hit by Pittsburgh catcher Rafael Flores Jr. and St. Louis’ silent bats and its struggles with runners in scoring position. In between, lefty reliever Brycen Mautz and Cade Winquest flashed some impressive stuff that allowed them to rack up the strikeouts that showed off their impressive promise.
Mautz, who was promoted from Triple-A Memphis on Saturday morning when veteran lefty Caleb Ferguson was designated for assignment, became the first reliever in Cardinals’ history to strike out at least eight batters in less than three innings or less of work. Mautz did surrender the three-run homer to Flores when he left a 3-2 slider up in the zone, but he otherwise induced a game-high 11 swings and misses.
"There's some really good bright spots and some opportunity for improvement in that outing," Cardinals' manager Oliver Marmol said, referring specifically to Mautz. "There's definitely a decent amount to get excited about because you look at the amount of swing and miss that he created with the eight punchouts through three innings, which is impressive. But there are some learning opportunities with him having two guys on, you're facing Flores who does a nice job against lefties, it's a 3-2 count and that's where you don't give in and you try to get something underneath the zone. There's a lefty on deck who you can attack differently -- those types of things cost him those three runs. But he'll debrief and learn from it."
Winquest, 26, finally made his long-awaited MLB debut and used a 96.6 mph fastball and a hard-biting curveball to strike out two Pirates in two innings of work. Winquest, an eight-round pick by the Cardinals in 2022, was claimed by the Yankees in the Rule 5 Draft last December and he made New York’s Opening Day roster to begin the 2026 season. However, he never made it into a game before getting designated for assignment by the Yankees and returned to the Cardinals.
In Winquest’s first inning of MLB work, he struck out Pirates’ standout Bryan Reynolds, who swung over a sharp overhand curveball. Then, after picking Nick Gonzales off base, he caught Oneil Cruz looking with another curveball at the bottom of the strike zone.
"He was good and I liked the way the ball came out of the hand," Marmol said of Winquest. "He seemed like he was in the moment and didn't make too much of (his MLB debut), so I liked what we saw today."
Cardinals starter Kyle Leahy, who is in his first full season as a starter in the big leagues, was limited to just 51 pitches on Saturday to try and curb his workload down the stretch. He allowed little more than a solo homer by Brandon Lowe in the second inning for the 12th straight start where he allowed two or fewer earned runs. That tied the longest mark ever by a Cardinal pitcher, tying what Adam Wainwright did during the 2009 season.
"The reason we started him is because he is continuing to dial in his preparation leading into his starts and what the day of the game looks like for him, and that's important," Marmol said of Leahy, whose ERA dropped to 3.13 for the season. "You continue to make tweaks to that to be at your best. He's a guy who doesn't take any of that for granted and he's very intentional and deliberate with that (prep work). There's a lot he takes out of what he's doing right now."
The Cardinals knotted the score at 1 when Joshua Báez smashed his first-ever homer at Busch Stadium. Báez hit a 0-1 slider off the end of the bat, but he still had enough power to drive the ball 370 feet and just over the wall in left field.
Making the second appearance of his MLB career, Mautz was hit with some bad luck in the fourth inning when Báez misplayed a single to left field with a two-base error. Báez appeared to have wiped out the error by throwing out Jake Mangum at third base, but the call was overturned when it was revealed that third baseman Nolan Gorman dropped the short-hopped throw. Jacob Gonzalez plated the unearned run two batters later with a single.
In the fifth inning, Mautz struck out three, but it was what happened in between the punchouts that burned the Cards. Mautz was pitch from getting out of the inning unscathed, but he left a 3-2 slider up to Rafael Flores Jr., who hit it 434 feet for a three-run homer that put the Pirates in control.
Pittsburgh’s shoddy defense, which committed three errors in Friday’s series opener, tried to help the Cards back into the game in the bottom of the sixth inning. Gonzalez booted consecutive balls of the bats of Jordan Walker and Nathan Church, and then Cruz allowed a routine fly ball to drop when he tried to crow-hop for a throw before actually catching the ball. It was the first time since April 14, 2025, that the Pirates committed three innings in the same inning.
Walker scored on Cruz’s misplay, but the Cardinals got no closer because of troubles getting the big hit. They left three runners in scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings. They were 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base.
