ST. LOUIS -- For three innings on Tuesday night, Matthew Liberatore looked like the staff ace that the Cardinals thought he could become when they switched him from a relief role to the starting rotation back in Spring Training.
Liberatore struck out the side in the first inning and he allowed just one harmless flyout to center to leave the infield in the second and third innings.
However, as so often has been the case, the velocity on Liberatore’s pitches dipped and an incredibly promising start fizzled into frustration.
“It was great until it wasn’t,” Liberatore lamented after the Cardinals’ 3-0 loss to the Rockies at Busch Stadium in a game that was delayed at the start for 41 minutes by rain.
The 25-year-old Liberatore hit 95.4 mph with his four-seam fastball on his fourth pitch of the game -- the highest velocity he’s reached in an outing that covered just four-plus innings, per Baseball Savant. Liberatore mostly held that velocity over the next two innings, and through three frames, he had been perfect.
All appearances were that Liberatore could be poised for a historic night against a Rockies team on an eight-game losing streak -- their fifth such skid of 2025.
However, Liberatore’s outing and the game changed dramatically in the fourth inning, when the first three Colorado batters reached base. Liberatore’s velocity on his four-seam fastball dropped to 93.4 mph against Kyle Freeman, and it plunged to 92.3 mph before Ezequiel Tovar drilled a 108.4 mph laser into left field for a single. Then, after seeing his four-seamer at 92.7 mph to Hunter Goodman, Liberatore abandoned the pitch, and his third straight offspeed pitch was hit a Statcast-projected 442 feet by the All-Star for the longest homer at Busch Stadium in 2025.
After hitting that high of 95.4 mph in the first inning, Liberatore’s velocity bottomed out at 91.7 by his 13th pitch of the fifth, per Baseball Savant. For the game, the average velocity on his fastball was 93.6 mph – down from the 94.1 mph he has averaged over 22 starts while going 6-10.
“I felt awesome though the first three innings, and then [velocity] dropped again and guys started taking better swings,” Liberatore said. “The way I was rolling through the first three innings, I felt like I could have thrown the whole game. I feel bad that I keep putting it on the bullpen and they keep having to come in and pick me up, and they’ve done a fantastic job of that. But that’s not who I want to be.”
Moved to the bullpen in 2024 because of his inconsistencies as a starter in 2022 and ’23, Liberatore hit his career high for innings at the MLB level with 86 while making 54 relief appearances and six spot starts. That role had him attacking more and holding his velocity as he was pitching in shorter bursts.
Switched back into a starting role for 2025, Liberatore got off to a strong start by posting a solid 3.70 ERA over his first 17 starts of the season. However, as the innings piled up on the 6-foot-4, 215-pound left-hander, his effectiveness went south. Liberatore’s ERA has sky-rocketed to 5.95 over his last five outings -- none of which have lasted longer than 4 1/3 innings.
Manager Oliver Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake decided to let Liberatore use the time off for All-Star break and a week afterward to rest in hopes of his velocity and stamina returning. Thus far, it’s still been a work in progress for Liberatore to maintain his strength throughout a full outing.
“You’re looking at him taking that break of almost two weeks and the workload of building back into that is appropriate,” said Marmol, who has purposefully had a quick hook with Liberatore during games to help him avoid pitching through high-stress innings. “He lost velo [against the Dodgers on Aug. 6], but he was able to hold it for an extra 25 or 30 pitches to around 70. So, that’s a good thing, but you want him to get through five or six innings.”
Liberatore said he doesn’t feel fatigued, and he has stepped up his workouts between starts to ensure that his legs and arm are strong enough to maintain his velocity. However, he admitted to peeking over his shoulder at the scoreboard with the radar gun readings in the middle of outings to check the speeds on his four-seam fastball.
Now, Liberatore is hopeful he can finish out the season as a starter and won’t be moved back to the bullpen.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I’ve ever wanted to do more than be a big league starter,” he said. “So, I don’t know if I could want [to be a reliever] anymore.”