Liberatore's perplexing mixed-bag season continues with rough outing

ST. LOUIS -- Matthew Liberatore’s first pitch on Saturday night did not yield the result he desired. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, it proved to be a harbinger of things to come.

The Rockies battered Liberatore for five runs in five innings and beat the Cardinals 8-6.

“Command wasn't great, mix wasn't great, and the results weren't great, so not really a lot of silver linings in today's outing,” Liberatore said.

Jake McCarthy wasted no time, driving the game’s first pitch 420 feet over the right-field bullpen to give the Rockies a 1-0 lead. It was the first of nine hits the Rockies racked up against the Cardinals left-hander, who struck out three and walked two.

“That one I'm really not upset about, 0-0, I know that being over the plate works in the pitcher's favor and first pitch of the game, I'm certainly not trying to nibble,” Liberatore said. “Yeah, I missed over the middle of the plate, and that's not ideal, but especially to start the game, I'd rather be 0-1 than 1-0. So that one I can live with. I think it's everything that happened after that that bothers me.”

Liberatore dealt with baserunners in every inning. He got some help in the second from JJ Wetherholt and Masyn Winn. Wetherholt was able to double off TJ Rumfield at second with a nice running catch on a soft liner to shallow right, and Winn made a diving play to get a forceout to end the inning two batters later.

Trouble started in the third with a McCarthy infield single, when Liberatore didn’t get over to cover first in time on a grounder to Alec Burleson. Liberatore hit the next batter, and Cole Carrigg followed with a two-run double. Carrigg scored on a Hunter Goodman single as five straight Rockies reached safely, giving Colorado a 4-2 lead.

“Not landing the curveball, not really landing the slider, command of the heater, walking guys, hitting a guy, not covering first base,” Liberatore said. “I mean, I could list about most of the game tonight that I just did not do a good job.”

Carrigg doubled and scored on a Rumfield single in the fifth to extend the lead.

“Took his shot, just wasn't his best one, to be honest with you,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “In several different ways there, it didn't go his way. When he didn't cover first, it led to a pretty big inning for them. So there's things in that game where we kind of handed it to them.”

The outing continues a stretch of up-and-down results for Liberatore. He followed six scoreless innings against the Braves on July 11 by allowing eight runs in nine innings combined in his next two starts, and this latest outing came right after another six scoreless-inning effort against the Blue Jays on Aug. 2.

“You just keep going,” Liberatore said. “We have no other choice. I've had bad outings before. Certainly no stranger to them. So I think that's probably the easier part of this whole thing. I think diving into that and figuring out what exactly went wrong and what needs to be done next time is the harder part.”

McCarthy’s second homer of the game, a two-run shot off Luis Gastelum, gave the Rockies a 7-3 lead in the sixth.

The Cardinals capitalized on an extra out in the bottom of the first. After Burleson reached on a passed ball while swinging at strike three, José Fermín immediately followed with a two-out double, scoring Iván Herrera and Burleson to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead.

Herrera had a pair of doubles, a single, scored twice and drove in a run. Fermín doubled, singled and walked three times. Jordan Walker’s eighth-inning solo homer was his first since July 9.

“Herrera’s starting to feel better about his swing,” Marmol said. “He's in a good spot, but he drove the baseball well today. Those two doubles, and then that line drive for a run there was a good swing as well. So feeling really good about where he's at. It was good to see [Walker] get into one there, and then Fermín just continues to take really professional at-bats. Those three guys did a nice job for sure.”