Liberatore Takes Step Back as Cardinals Fall to Rockies

THE CARDINAL CHRONICLE
Liberatore Takes Step Back as Cardinals Fall to Rockies
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

The St. Louis Cardinals spent Saturday night chasing the Colorado Rockies.

More specifically, they spent Saturday night chasing Jake McCarthy.

McCarthy opened the game with a home run, added another two-run shot in the sixth, scored four times and helped carry Colorado to an 8-6 win over the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.

For St. Louis, this was the kind of game that looked available early and frustrating late.

The Cardinals answered McCarthy’s leadoff homer with two runs in the bottom of the first inning. They kept pushing back. They cut into the deficit multiple times. Jordan Walker hit a long home run in the eighth. Nathan Church singled home a run in the ninth.

But the Cardinals never fully caught up.

They trailed after the third inning, trailed by four after the sixth, and even with late traffic and late fight, they could not undo the damage from another rough Matthew Liberatore start and a Rockies lineup that kept adding on just enough.

Colorado beat St. Louis, 8-6, evening the weekend series and handing the Cardinals a loss they simply should not be comfortable absorbing at home.

The Rockies came in with one of the worst records in baseball.

The Cardinals came in needing to stack wins.

That did not happen.

McCarthy set the tone immediately. He led off the game by driving a home run to right-center field, giving Colorado a 1-0 lead before Liberatore had settled into the night. It was a loud first swing from a hitter who would become the biggest problem of the game for St. Louis.

The Cardinals answered right away.

In the bottom of the first, Iván Herrera and Alec Burleson reached, and José Fermín delivered a double to left field, scoring both runners and giving St. Louis a 2-1 lead.

That should have been the moment the Cardinals grabbed control.

Instead, it became the last time they led.

Liberatore could not hold the advantage. Colorado came back in the third inning, with McCarthy again right in the middle of it. Kyle Karros and McCarthy reached ahead of Cole Carrigg, who drove a double to center field to score both runners and put the Rockies back in front, 3-2.

Hunter Goodman followed with a single to right, scoring Carrigg and stretching Colorado’s lead to 4-2.

That was the inning that flipped the game.

The Cardinals had taken the lead. The Rockies took it right back. From that point on, St. Louis was playing uphill.

Liberatore continued to labor. Colorado added another run in the fifth when Carrigg scored on TJ Rumfield’s single to left, making it 5-2. The Rockies were not just hitting the ball out of the park. They were finding ways to keep innings alive and make contact matter.

That was the difference.

Colorado finished with eight runs on 11 hits. The Rockies did not need a massive inning. They scored in five different frames and kept forcing the Cardinals to respond.

St. Louis did respond at times.

Just not enough.

In the bottom of the fifth, Herrera got aboard again and later scored on Masyn Winn’s sacrifice fly to center, trimming the deficit to 5-3. It was a productive at-bat and another example of Herrera continuing to be in the middle of things offensively.

But just as quickly as the Cardinals chipped away, McCarthy answered.

In the top of the sixth, Ezequiel Tovar reached ahead of McCarthy, and McCarthy launched his second home run of the night, a 417-foot shot to center field. That pushed Colorado’s lead to 7-3 and gave the Rockies the separation they needed.

That swing hurt.

It came at the exact moment the Cardinals had started to make the game feel manageable again. Instead of a two-run deficit, St. Louis was back down four.

That is what good leadoff hitters do when they are locked in. They do not just start games. They change them.

McCarthy was locked in all night.

He finished 4-for-5 with two home runs, three RBIs and four runs scored. He scored half of Colorado’s runs by himself. He had the first swing of the game and the biggest swing in the middle innings. Every time the Cardinals seemed to create a path back, McCarthy helped widen it again.

The Cardinals kept trying.

In the bottom of the sixth, Everson Pereira reached and Herrera singled to left, scoring Pereira and cutting the lead to 7-4. Herrera had another strong night at the plate, continuing to show why his bat remains one of the most valuable parts of the current roster.

Still, the Cardinals could not build the bigger inning.

That was a problem throughout the game.

St. Louis finished with 10 hits and six runs, so this was not one of those nights where the lineup completely disappeared. But the Cardinals left 12 men on base, and that number tells a major part of the story. They had chances to do more. They had traffic. They had opportunities to turn this into a different kind of game.

They did not finish enough innings.

Colorado did.

That is how a team loses despite reaching double-digit hits.

Walker gave the Cardinals one more jolt in the eighth, hitting a 432-foot home run to left-center field to cut the deficit to 7-5. It was a big swing from Walker, and for a moment, it put energy back into the ballpark.

The Cardinals were within two.

The tying run felt close enough to matter.

Then Colorado scored again.

McCarthy led off the ninth with a single and eventually came around on Karros’ sacrifice fly to left, pushing the Rockies’ lead to 8-5. That insurance run mattered, because the Cardinals had one more push left in the bottom half.

Fermín singled to open the ninth and later scored when Church singled to right, cutting the deficit to 8-6. The Cardinals had life. They had the tying run within reach. They had forced Colorado to work to the finish.

But they could not finish the comeback.

Jordan Romano closed it down for the Rockies, and St. Louis was left with another frustrating loss at Busch Stadium.

Liberatore took the loss, falling to 5-9. He allowed five runs on nine hits over five innings, walking two and striking out three. After six shutout innings in Toronto his last time out, this was a step back. The Rockies were on him early, stayed on him often and forced the Cardinals to play from behind most of the night.

That has been the concern with Liberatore all season.

There are nights when the ability shows up and you can see why the Cardinals continue to give him opportunities. Then there are nights like Saturday, when he struggles to stop contact, struggles to put away innings and leaves the offense trying to dig out of a hole.

The bullpen was not perfect either. Colorado added two runs in the sixth and one more in the ninth, and those runs proved important. The Cardinals were trying to climb back into the game, but the Rockies kept placing another run just out of reach.

That is losing baseball.

Not because the Cardinals quit.

They did not.

They answered enough to keep the game interesting. Fermín drove in two runs with the first-inning double and scored in the ninth. Herrera had another productive night, scoring twice and driving in a run. Winn added a sacrifice fly. Walker homered. Church drove in the final run.

There were good individual moments.

The problem was the total result.

A team trying to stay in the Wild Card conversation cannot keep giving away games like this at home against Colorado. The Rockies can hit. They can have a night. McCarthy was terrific. But the Cardinals cannot look at the schedule, see Colorado at Busch Stadium, and come away satisfied with splitting the first two games.

Friday night, the Cardinals won a tight 3-2 game despite being outhit.

Saturday night, the Rockies flipped the script. They were the team that kept applying pressure. They were the team that got the big swing. They were the team that added on late. They were the team that made the Cardinals chase the game.

That is not where St. Louis needed to be.

The Cardinals are back below .500, and every time they appear to be ready to build a little momentum, another game like this knocks them backward. That has been the story of this club. Win a game that feels useful. Follow it with one that feels avoidable.

Saturday felt avoidable.

The Cardinals had an early lead. They had 10 hits. They had a chance to take control of the series against a last-place club.

Instead, they allowed eight runs, let McCarthy beat them all night and could not turn late offense into a full comeback.

Now Sunday becomes important.

Not because one August game solves everything, but because the Cardinals cannot afford to keep wasting chances. They need series wins. They need to beat teams they should beat. They need to stop hovering around the .500 mark and start stacking games if they are serious about staying in the fight.

Saturday night was not that.

It was another reminder that talent and urgency are not the same thing.

The Rockies won, 8-6, and once again, St. Louis walked away from a game that felt like it should have been there for the taking.

The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
Preserving the Past, Promoting the Present, and Projecting the Future.

Check out The Cardinal Chronicle for more St. Louis Cardinals coverage, daily farm reports, prospect updates and old-school baseball commentary:
www.cardinalchronicle.com

Photo Credit: Matthew Liberatore, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB