This Cardinals team does make it interesting. One minute they give you hope. The next it’s gone. After a doubleheader sweep yesterday, St. Louis had a chance to get their first road series win. But it was washed away on a rainy Cincinnati afternoon.
Matthew Liberatore looked really good again, with his only mistake being a two-run homer hit by Jose Trevino. But his start came to an abrupt end when rain began to fall in the bottom of the fourth.
The game was delayed for almost two hours, and when the rain finally let up, he had been sitting long enough, and Oli Marmol was forced to go with Matt Svanson. The Reds then proceeded to score seven more runs and win the game by a final score of 9-1.
Let’s get into some takeaways.
Rain shortens Libby’s start, taxes bullpen
It’s a good thing the Cardinals were able to use their bullpen sparingly yesterday in both games, because they needed work from the relief corps when the rain finally stopped.
I’ve been really impressed by Liberatore this year, and he’s easily been the Cardinals best starter. I honestly think without the rain, it might have been a closer game. Other than the home run, Libby was super efficient and was doing a great job of attacking hitters. He only allowed two hits and a walk while recording two strikeouts.
Svanson relieved him in the fourth inning and allowed two runs before being replaced by Riley O’Brien, who wasn’t any better. O’Brien allowed a solo homer to Spencer Steer in the sixth to make it 5-1 and left with two runners on in the seventh. John King took over and allowed a few hits, which scored O’Brien’s runners. King also allowed a run of his own.
The Cardinals will need a strong start out of Sonny Gray tomorrow when they return home to face the Mets.
Offense goes silent
Something that has bothered me about the Cardinals in recent years is that when they score a bunch of runs one game, the offense falls flat the next. That happened today against the Reds. It was a 9-1 win last night for the Cardinals, who were firing on all cylinders.
Today, they managed to just one run, with Brendan Donovan scoring on an error when he hustled home from second base.
Once again, the Cardinals have a very inconsistent offense. I like what I’m seeing this year better than what we saw the last two years, but they just need to be more consistent. Hopefully today was just a clunker and they’ll pick things back up tomorrow against Clay Holmes, but something needs to change. I’m hoping that moving Masyn Winn up to second in the order makes a difference. It sure did yesterday.
Tomorrow’s game starts at 7:15 central, just minutes after the start of Game 6 between the Blues and Jets.