You can feel for Matthew Liberatore as he attempts to figure out what’s gone wrong with his 2026 season, but the St. Louis Cardinals paid the price for another start gone wrong as Matthew’s outing fell apart in one inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks Wednesday night.
The Cardinals were the first to score again Wednesday night as José Fermín walked in the bottom of the 2nd inning, stole second base and scored on a double from Blaze Jordan giving St. Louis an early 1-0 lead. Here’s your one and only Cardinals highlight for the night so make sure you savor it.
To his credit, Matthew Liberatore looked fairly sharp through the first 3 innings. However, subtract that credit for what happened to Michael in the top of the 4th inning. Corbin Carroll led off with a single and then Liberatore walked Moreno. Nolan Arenado grounded into a fielder’s choice where Moreno was forced at second leaving a potential double play in order. That didn’t happen. Tommy Troy would reach on a infield single to second scoring Carroll and tying the game 1-1. Sadly, it wouldn’t end there as the Diamondbacks scoring was just getting started. After Gurriel Jr. popped out to first for the second out, the floodgates opened as every ball hit off of Liberatore would be hard and loud. Vargas doubled to left scoring two and giving Arizona a 3-1 lead. Then, it was back-to-back homers from Groover and Marte. By the time the dust had settled, it was 6-1 Diamondbacks.
The Cardinals showed some life in the bottom of the 4th inning connecting a few hits together, but unfortunately the grand total of back-to-back singles from Fermin and Winn to open the bottom of the 4th would only be one as Blaze Jordan would eventually hit a sacrifice fly to center scoring Fermin who had advanced to third on a wild pitch by Diamondbacks reliever Thompson (no relation to Brad, I’m told). It would remain 6-2 Diamondbacks into the late innings.
There was an ugly moment in the bottom of the 5th inning when Iván Herrera grounded out to second, but tumbled over first base as he landed awkwardly in front of the base and then his right foot tripped over the base sending him tumbling down the first base line where he sat for a minute or two. He would eventually be removed from the game later when Bryan Torres took his place, but that was likely precautionary as the game was already very out of reach.
Matthew Liberatore would pitch into the 6th inning. His final painful line for the night would be 5 1/3 innings pitched allowing 8 hits, 6 earned runs while striking out 3 and walking 2. I think many of us watching Matthew struggle again tonight were left with a “where do we go from here?” type of vibe. Let’s hope pitching coach Dusty Blake and Liberatore can figure something out.
Gordon Graceffo was the Cardinals middle innings guy and he had his own issues in the top of the 7th inning. He would give up a one-out walk to Moreno and then back-to-back doubles from Troy and Gurriel Jr. upping the Diamondbacks lead to 8-2.
Justin Bruihl drew the short straw and had to enter the game in the top of the 8th inning. In keeping with the theme of the night, it was not pretty. He walked Groover before Marte singled. Then, Blaze Jordan committed his first Major League error on a ground ball from Perdomo to load the bases. Bruihl would strike out Corbin Carroll, but Moreno would manage to lift a sacrifice fly to Nootbaar in left giving the Diamondbacks another run they didn’t need at 9-2. It’s almost like Nolan Arenado felt sorry for us as he kindly struck out with the bases loaded to end the top of the 8th.
The bottom of the 9th inning wasn’t without high points. José Fermín crushed a no-doubt home run into the visitor’s bullpen, so that was nice. Nolan Arenado also took what looked like a painful tumble into the netting and first row of seats along the third base line trying to grab a foul ball from Nootbaar, but he apparently is fine. Lars would smash the next pitch off of the center field wall that Carroll crashed into for a triple. Nootbaar would score on a laser shot single to right-center by Blaze Jordan making the score look a little more respectable at 9-4. Any hopes of a miracle rally would end as JJ Wetherholt finished his 0 for 5 night with a ground out.
The St. Louis Cardinals will try to win game 4 of their home series versus the Arizona Diamondbacks Thursday night. Michael McGreevy gets the ball for the Cardinals while Zac Gallen start for the Diamondbacks. First pitch is set for 6:45pm central time at Busch Stadium and the game TV broadcast is available on Cardinals.tv.
