WEST SACRAMENTO -- Before the longest inning of his professional career finally came to a close, Matthew Liberatore had to wait a few seconds more.
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Liberatore fired a 2-2 sinker to Athletics catcher Jonah Heim that was ruled inside. But Cardinals catcher Pedro Pagés called for an ABS challenge on the close pitch, so Liberatore lingered on the mound until replay showed his pitch caught the edge of the strike zone, punching out Heim to end the inning.
Only then did Liberatore walk slowly off the mound, the baseball still in his hand.
The Cardinals left-hander was still figuring out what happened in a four-run, 43-pitch fifth -- his longest inning by pitch count in either the Major or Minor Leagues -- that sank his club in Wednesday’s 6-2 loss to the A’s at Sutter Health Park.
“I felt like that was a very competitive inning,” Liberatore said. “It just took a lot of pitches and came down to one swing.”
The swing in question was one mighty hack by A’s first baseman Nick Kurtz, who flipped the game on its head with a Statcast-projected 405-foot grand slam.
After Kurtz just missed a home run to left field on a 2-2 fastball, Liberatore switched to his slider in hopes of striking out the lefty slugger. Instead, he missed his location -- down and away, out of the strike zone -- and left the pitch up.
Too far up.
“If that pitch is six inches lower, he probably doesn’t hit it out,” Liberatore said.
Colby Thomas followed with a double off the bullpen wall in right field. Liberatore still finished the inning after striking out Brent Rooker, walking rookie Henry Bolte and ringing up Heim, but the damage was done. The lefty’s night was over, and his ERA rose to 4.40 for the season.
“It sucks when the line looks like it does -- five innings, nine hits, four runs,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “But he easily, if that inning’s different, could get pretty deep into that game based on where the pitch count was leading into that.”
In fact, before his historically lengthy fifth inning, Liberatore had a historically short first three. He completed the first three frames on just 22 pitches -- seven in the first, 10 in the second and just five in the third. It was the southpaw’s lowest pitch count through three completed innings of any Major League start.
But despite sharp breaking pitches -- four of his five strikeouts in the game came on his slider -- Liberatore felt like he was getting lucky early on. He avoided damage despite plenty of hard contact, such as Shea Langeliers’ 106.5 mph lineout to lead off the game or Rooker’s 107.4 mph liner that found a glove to start the second.
In his first three innings, Liberatore allowed just three singles and even notched his third pickoff of the season, tied for the most in MLB.
“Really, I felt like all game I was making the right decisions,” he said. “To be honest, I felt like I made a lot worse pitches in the first three innings only throwing 22 pitches than I did in the last two. Just happened to be some longer at-bats, some foul balls, guys fouling stuff off in good locations.”
After allowing back-to-back one-out hits in the fifth, Liberatore had Langeliers down 1-2 after a whiff on a well-executed curveball, but two fastballs and another curve all missed the zone to load the bases.
Ahead 1-2 on Kurtz, Liberatore tried to go offspeed for another punchout, but Kurtz -- ready for a two-strike slider -- made him pay. It was the first grand slam allowed by Liberatore as a big leaguer.
The lefty needed 15 additional pitches, running his pitch count up to 89, to finish the frame. His 43 pitches in the fifth were tied for the fifth most in an inning by any pitcher in MLB this season, but considering Liberatore’s early efficiency, there was no discussion about an early hook.
“As long as you’re not going to send him back out, we’re fine with the pitch count based on how quickly he got to that inning,” Marmol said.
And even though he walked off the mound with the Cardinals trailing for good, Liberatore was fine with that, too.
“I would have kept throwing until they took the ball out of my hand,” he said.