Andre Pallante outduels rookie of the year leader Paul Skenes

The St. Louis Cardinals took the series opener against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday night. The Redbirds went up against one of the best rookies in baseball and one of the league's top pitchers in Paul Skenes. However, it wasn't Skenes who came out on top.

Instead, Andre Pallante of the Cardinals won the pitching duel. Skenes threw six innings and allowed just four hits and one earned run. He walked just one batter and struck out seven. That's a great line! However, the Cardinals' young pitcher threw a gem in return.

Pallante went seven strong innings while giving up just four hits and walking one batter. He struck out a career-high nine batters. Pallante threw a shutout.

One would think that Andre Pallante would receive the attention given the fact that his outing was better than Skenes. However, the opposite was true on social media; Major League Baseball's official Twitter page made a special post for Skenes while they simply reposted the Cardinals' post about Pallante. The only major outlet to state that Pallante outdueled Skenes was Talkin' Baseball.

Since being recalled in late May and moved to the rotation, Pallante has been the Cardinals' best-starting pitcher. Among starters who have thrown 50 innings since May 29th, Pallante has the best ERA (3.62) on the staff. He has a 7-7 record in 18 starts (99.1 innings). Batters are hitting just .236 against him, and he has a 1.30 WHIP to go along with a 3.78 FIP in that time span.

It's likely that Pallante's second-half surge has penned him into the 2025 starting rotation. He's deserving of a spot next year given his output this year. A revamped arsenal and a reliance on his defense has helped propel him to be a reliable starter who can go deep into games. He has a 61.4% groundball rate, one of the highest in the league this year. Luckily, the defensive efforts from players like Nolan Arenado and Masyn Winn have spared those groundballs from going to the outfield.

Andre Pallante outdueled one of the best pitchers in baseball on Monday, and he hardly got the recognition that he deserved. If he can continue to pitch this well, one spot in next year's questionable rotation will be reliably filled.