Struggling Lefty Torched Again by Cubs in Another Loss for Free-Falling Cardinals

· Yahoo Sports

Roundtable Sports' John Denton breaks down another rocky start by Matthew Liberatore and the Cardinals' eighth loss in the past 11 games.

In a season for the Cardinals where development was prioritized above contention, and some hiccups along the way were expected, Matthew Liberatore was thought to be beyond that stage and ready to evolve into a staff leader.

Named the team’s starter on Opening Day and expected to be the type of seasoned veteran who could be a go-to stopper for the staff, the 26-year-old Liberatore seems to be regressing in plain sight because of his inability to stay out of the middle of the plate with his pitches.

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A dismal June slide was an alarming 8.27 ERA was slowed by a couple of strong starts against the Braves, but Liberatore is again getting hit hard early in games and he’s not even getting the Cardinals the starting length they need during one of their toughest stretches of the season. The Cardinals’ lack of faith in the struggling lefty was apparent on Monday with how they had sixth starter Hunter Dobbins ready to piggyback the start against the Cubs.

Liberatore surrendered eight hits, three earned runs and a 19th home run of the season in just 3 2/3 innings of work in a 7-3 loss to the rival Cubs for the Cards’ eighth defeat in their past 11 games. It was the seventh time in the past nine starts that Liberatore has allowed at least three earned runs. On Monday, he threw first-pitch strikes to just two of the first nine hitters he faced.

"You look at the Cubs, and they are either first or second against left-handed starters and they've done a nice job against them, and you're going to have to get ahead of them and put yourself in more favorable counts to get what you want," manager Oliver Marmol told reporters afterward. "So, that was the biggest difference for (Liberatore) -- falling behind and being in bad counts." 

The game was delayed an hour and 45 minutes by storms that blew into the St. Louis area to cool off an area that had ravaged by triple-digit “feels like” temperatures over the past 48 hours.

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The Cardinals battled their way back into the game in the sixth inning when Masyn Winn drilled a single up the middle to score Jordan Walker, and he wisely moved up 90 feet when Pete Crow-Armstrong threw home instead of to the cut-off man. The hit was Winn’s second of the night, and fifth in the past three games.

Winn came around to score when pinch-hitter Bryan Torres ripped a rule book double down the right field line to get the Cards within 5-3.  

Cards in a freefall out of the All-Star break again 

The loss was just another poor performance for a Cardinals team that is in a freefall coming out of the MLB All-Star break for the second straight year. Having already dropped series to the Dbacks, Angels and Reds and a makeup game against Arizona, the Cardinals have lost eight of 11 games and four of their past five games.

The schedule offers the Cards no breaks what with games coming over the next nine days before the next off day. St. Louis played their 11th game of 20 games in 20 days. They have three games remaining against the Cubs, followed by a road trip that will take them to Toronto and New York to face the Yankees.

One oddity in the game was Cardinals' catcher Ivan Herrera being called out after asking for a second time out during an at bat. Because he already had two strikes when he asked for the second time out, Herrera was called out and the ruling was a strike out.

Liberatore encountered trouble from the start of the game with the first three batters reaching off him and Seiya Suzuki scoring on an Alex Bregman double. The only thing that prevented it from being a multi-run first inning was Liberatore catching Pete Crow-Armstrong stealing after a game-opening walk.

Three of the first four reached to start to the second inning and Miguel Amaya drilled a single the other way to plate Nico Hoerner to make it 2-0. After Jose Fermin reached David Peterson for a solo shot to slice the deficit in half, Liberatore grooved his first pitch of the third inning – a 94.2 mph sinker – that Alex Bregman hit 369 feet and into the seat in right field.

Two more walks in the fourth inning chased Liberatore in the fourth inning. Bregman and Carson Kelly led off the fifth with singles off Hunter Dobbins and Hoerner slipped a hit through the drawn-in infield to make it 5-1.

Dobbins, who shut out the Angels over six innings in a 1-0 win last week, allowed just two earned runs over his first 4 1/3 innings of work. However, Hoerner reached him for a back-breaking two-run homer in the ninth inning. Hoerner was 4 for 5 with four RBI, while Bregman was 4 for 5 with two RBI and three runs scored. 

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