Cardinals ride Liberatore, Leahy and Arenado's dazzling defense to tightrope win at Busch

ST. LOUIS — Behind another standout effort from Matthew Liberatore, the St. Louis Cardinals got the weekend series against the division-rival Milwaukee Brewers off to a strong start.

In a tightrope, 3-2 win at Busch Stadium on Friday night, the Cardinals pitched well and ran the bases aggressively to improve their home record to 9-4 on the season.

The Standouts

• Brendan Donovan (STL): 2-for-3, BB, R, RBI 

• Matthew Liberatore (STL): 6.0 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K 

• Lars Nootbaar (STL): 2-for-3, BB, R, RBI

The Moments That Mattered

The Delivery: Matthew Liberatore cruised through his third consecutive quality start and his fourth in five games this season. In each of his five starts, he has logged six or more innings.

After being used like the pitching version of a boomerang in previous seasons of his MLB career, Liberatore seems to be settling into a home, one in which he always had the confidence he could thrive—as a key cog in the starting rotation at the highest level.

“Growing up as a little kid, this is what I dreamed of, being in a big-league rotation and being able to go out and contribute to the team’s success,” Liberatore said Friday. “This is what I worked all off-season for. So to see some of that fruit come to fruition now is definitely rewarding, but it’s still very early in the season. Just trying to… work as hard as I can in between every start.”

On The Move: Brendan Donovan had an interesting trek around the base paths to produce the Cardinals’ first run of the game in the fourth inning.

Donovan went first to third on a Nolan Arenado base hit that was served into left field. He was off with the pitch in a beautiful example of a hit-and-run, but Donovan nearly didn’t stick the landing—he didn’t slide despite the close play at third, and barely kept a toe on the bag as his momentum almost carried him past the base.

It was a strange spot, but Donovan made up for it with a reckless dash toward home plate on a Nolan Gorman fly out to right. It would have taken a perfect throw from Jackson Chourio to get him—we know this because the actual throw, while quite good, tailed slightly up the first base line, making for a longer exchange between catch and tag for Williams Contreras.

That small delay gave Donovan the window he needed to sneak the oven mitt safely onto the plate.

In other ‘On The Move’ lore from Friday, Victor Scott II and Masyn Winn stole bases, with Winn landing at third after a Milwaukee fielding error led to the ball trickling into center field. Nootbaar drove him in with a base hit to right field, netting the Cards a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning.

The Lumber: Later that inning, Willson Contreras clubbed a double over Chourio’s head in right field to advance Nootbaar to third. Donovan followed it up with an RBI hit to give the Cardinals a third run. Contreras was thrown out at the plate trying to score from second base, but the Cardinals led 3-0.

The Leather: Nolan Arenado made a play that seemingly defied gravity and a few other laws of physics in a spot in the game where the Cardinals just absolutely had to have it.

With Phil Maton working around an eighth-inning jam, he induced a slow chopper in the direction of the shortstop against the speedy Chourio. Arenado charged to aggressively cut off the baseball, but there still wasn’t a realistic chance of spinning to second to start a double play with Chourio running.

Third basemen of the mortal variety would have cut their losses and thrown to first to get the sure out, but the Cardinals only led by a run at this point—so Arenado opted for the superhuman play.

Contorting his body with all his momentum carrying him across the back side of the pitcher’s mound, Arenado pivoted on a dime and delivered a strike to Pedro Pagés to cut down the tying run at the plate.

Matthew Liberatore had to do a double-take when watching it unfold on television from the trainer’s room after his start.

“One guy makes it,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of the Arenado play. “The guy that made it tonight.”

“What you have to compute in a matter of, I mean, a second there, is incredible. The fact that it comes natural to him—it’s fun to watch.”

The Fulcrum

#KyleEveryDeahy Battles Out Of It: Pitching for the fourth straight team game after the benefit of the Thursday off-day, Kyle Leahy inherited a small fire after the Arenado error in the seventh. He added kindling by allowing a base hit and a walk to load the bases.

But then, Leahy went to work. He navigated the rest of the inning with a run-scoring groundout and another groundout that kept the runners on second and third planted. A fly out to center to end the threat continued the strong season for the most consistently reliable (and available) reliever in the Cardinals bullpen.

“For the amount of years in the big leagues, as a young guy, for him to stay under control the whole time—he’s continuing to show the ability to do that,” Marmol said. “Regardless of situation, he makes pitches. He’s had a heavy workload but he’s done a really nice job with it.”

Extra Bases

Keep On Walking: Lars Nootbaar walked to lead off the game for the ninth time this month, setting an MLB record for the most lead-off walks in the month of April. The previous record was set in 1975, until Nootbaar tied it earlier this month.

In The Crowd: Cardinals fan Augie Nash had a thought about old-school baseball that he shared on Twitter, asking whether under a previous rule set, we might have seen a Contreras-on-Contreras collision on the plate that saw William tag out Willson at home plate.

The announced attendance at Busch Stadium was 24,437 for Friday night. The Budweiser Terrace for that all-game Happy Hour seemed busy, anyway.

The Perch: After the win, the Cardinals still sit in fourth in the NL Central standings, trailing the division-leading Cubs by 5.5 games.

On Deck: The Cardinals will face the Brewers again on Saturday afternoon at Busch Stadium with Sonny Gray (3-0, 3.41 ERA) opposing Quinn Priester (1-0, 1.93 ERA).