PITTSBURGH -- Paul Skenes was going out for the ninth inning, regardless if the Pirates scored in the eighth.

The Pirates’ rookie phenom pitched into the final frame for the first time in his Major League career, but he could not finish the inning. After the Bucs tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, Skenes allowed what would be the game-deciding RBI single in the ninth to Alec Burleson, leading to a 2-1 Cardinals win on Tuesday at PNC Park.

Skenes was dominant for most of the night, and the crowd of 32,422 loved what they saw from the rookie, chanting “MVP” as he entered for the ninth.

"It was awesome, especially on a Tuesday night,” said Skenes. “Kind of just shows where we're at as a team, where the city's at. Just really, really cool. Obviously wish I could have finished it. It was a cool moment."

But nobody is perfect, and neither is Skenes’ record anymore.

Skenes was dominant most of the night, save for Nolan Arenado's home run off a first-pitch curveball in the fifth. He was burned for his aggressiveness there, but for most of the night, it served him well. He and catcher Yasmani Grandal recognized the Cardinals were trying to jump on him most of the night, leading to more quick outs that allowed him to enter the ninth with just 91 pitches.

"I felt good,” Skenes said. “The complicated thing there is when I come out with no-hitters or whatever in the sixth or seventh inning, the reason I'm coming out in the sixth or seventh at 100 pitches is because I had some longer innings. These were relatively quick. Low-stress, low-pressure innings kind of allowed me to keep going.”

Skenes didn’t have much margin for error, but he was spotted a second chance late when Nick Gonzales singled home Oneil Cruz in the eighth to tie it. Ke’Bryan Hayes grounded into a double play two pitches later, but Skenes and the Pirates had another shot.

In the ninth, Skenes nearly had a leadoff strikeout of Michael Siani, but Grandal couldn’t hang onto the foul tip, one of those freak occurrences that didn’t bounce Skenes’ way.

“You can't teach that,” manager Derek Shelton said in defense of his catcher. “It's a reactionary thing, it goes in the glove. Anybody thinks that's a reason or something that can happen, they don't watch much baseball.”

Siani drove a liner to left on the next pitch and appeared to be thrown out at second after a dart by Bryan Reynolds, but a successful Cardinals challenge reversed the call. Masyn Winn grounded out to second to advance Siani to third and draw the infield in, which Burleson took advantage of with a line-drive base hit off an 0-2 fastball. Carmen Mlodzinski cleaned up the rest of the frame without any drama, but the damage had been done.

“I mean he was strong,” Shelton said of the decision to keep Skenes in the game. “He was at 91 [pitches]. He's had a lot of rest. Did not see any fatigue out of him and the stuff was still good.”

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Skenes’ line was still impressive over his career-high 8 1/3 innings pitched. He struck out eight with four hits and no walks allowed. According to OptaStats, Skenes became the first rookie in the modern era (since 1901) to get at least 25 outs, allow fewer than five hits, walk zero batters and strike out eight in a losing effort.

A losing effort that was much more on the offense, which left seven runners on base.

“I think the key to the game was we had opportunities to score and we didn't get a big hit,” Shelton said. “We had bases loaded twice. We had a runner at second and no outs. So, yeah, the key to the game was the fact that we did not execute.”

Even in the throes of one of the tougher losses of the year, it still offered a glimpse of what could be for Skenes and his team.

"The atmosphere here in Pittsburgh, it felt like a playoff game,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol.