Cueto (3-1) allowed five earned runs on 10 hits and two walks while striking out two across five innings to take the loss Thursday against the Cardinals.
The final line wasn't pretty for Cueto in his first start since April 28, but he allowed four hits, one walk and four of his five earned runs in his first inning of work. From there, his only blemish was a solo home run surrendered to Matt Carpenter in the second inning. While he didn't get back to his full workload, he managed to throw 76 pitches, a decent effort for his first start in over two months. His velocity will be worth monitoring as his fastball velocity was down nearly 1.5 mph from his season average, though that shouldn't induce panic in the first start after such a long layoff.