The St. Louis Cardinals entered Monday night’s game against the Chicago Cubs with an urgent need to turn their recent downward spiral around. The Chicago Cubs and specifically their bats seemed determined to not allow that to happen.
Matthew Liberatore started the game for the Cardinals who planned to piggyback his start with Hunter Dobbins for the final half of the game. David Peterson, who the Cardinals hit hard in their last encounter, made that seem like a distant memory as he held St. Louis and
their struggling offense to a minimum of opportunities.
The Cubs scored on Matthew Liberatore in each of the first 3 innings. In the top of the 1st inning, Liberatore walked Pete Crow-Armstrong, but then picked him off of first to the delight of the “Tarps Off” crowd in right field. Chicago got the last laugh, though, as Suzuki and Bregman hit back-to-back doubles giving the Cubs a 1-0 lead.
Chicago would score again in the top of the 2nd inning as Nico Hoerner led off with a single. After Ian Happ struck out, Dansby Swanson singled giving Chicago runners at first and second with just one out. Amaya then smacked a single to right doubling the Cubs lead to 2-0.
The Cardinals would get one run back in the bottom of the 2nd inning when José Fermín would become the Fermínator muscling up for a 407 foot shot into Big Mac Land reducing the Cubs lead to 2-1.
The top of the 3rd started with Alex Bregman getting that run right back taking a 94 mph Liberatore sinker the other way into the right field stands for a homer and a 3-1 Cubs lead. It was obvious that Matthew wasn’t fooling anyone Monday night.
Hunter Dobbins entered the game in the top of the 4th inning getting out of a jam created by Matthew Liberatore, but he would surrender two runs of his own in the top of the 5th inning when Nico Hoerner singled to knock in Bregman and Kelly who had reached on singles making it 5-1 Cubs.
The Cardinals offense would finally find some life in the bottom of the 6th inning when Jordan Walker drew a walk to get St. Louis started. Iván Herrera then struck out when umpires ruled he called two timeouts which resulted in an automatic strike which was confusing because it seemed the first timeout was called by the home plate umpire. Go figure. That awkward moment fortunately didn’t kill the Cardinals momentum as Jordan Walker advanced to second on a groundout by Alec Burleson and then scored on a single by Masyn Winn reducing the Cubs lead to 5-2. The Cardinals would get another run when Bryan Torres hit a ground-rule double which scored Winn who had advanced to third on a wild pitch making a game of it with the Cubs still leading 5-3.
The Cardinals had their chances in the late innings. Jordan Walker came SO close to tying the game in the bottom of the 7th. After Blaze Jordan drew a very rare walk, two batters later, Walker caught a 95 mph and flew out to deep left as Ian Happ caught the ball up against the wall. So freaking close, but no cigar. Iván Herrera also led off the bottom of the 8th inning by knocking a ball off of the right field wall, but was thrown out by Ian Happ trying to stretch it to a double.
Nico Hoerner put the game out of reach with 2 outs in the top of the 9th inning when he followed an Alex Bregman double with an 80 mph sweeper that he launched 382 feet into the left field stands giving the Cubs a 7-3 lead. Stuff happens and lately it’s all breaking wrong for the Cardinals.
The St. Louis Cardinals will see what they can accomplish against the Chicago Cubs again Tuesday night at Busch Stadium. The Chicago Cubs have announced Colin Rea as their starter while the Cardinals have yet to announce who’ll start for them. First pitch scheduled for 6:45pm central time with the TV broadcast available through Cardinals.tv.
