ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cardinals put together a mashup of mishaps and missed opportunities Monday night for their arguably clunkiest loss of the season.

Against a Cleveland club that was twice routed in Atlanta over the weekend, including emphatically by a dozen runs on Sunday night before their charter to St. Louis, the Cardinals bunched hits but didn’t turn them into a bunch runs in a 9-3 loss at Busch Stadium. A tickets-sold crowd of 17,901 – the smallest of the season but loud enough to attempt a Bronx-inspired rollcall of players by chanting their names – saw the locals load the bases in the first inning only to produce one run. They’ve scored three or fewer in seven consecutive home games.

When they loaded the bases in the bottom of the eighth with no one out, the Cardinals’ managed only a single run.

By the end of that inning, they were 4 for 30 on the homestand with runners in scoring position for a .133 average.

Jordan Walker homered for the third time in as many games, and the Cardinals sprinkled in a run here and a run there but were overall run over by the Guardians. An error in the eighth led to three more runs for Cleveland; an outfielder apparently losing track of the outs may have led to one more. Thumped in Atlanta on NBC Sunday Night Baseball less than 24 hours earlier, the Guardians arrived in St. Louis having allowed 11 or more runs in two of their previous three games. They got traction from their superb starter Gavin Williams.

He held the Cardinals to two runs – one in the first, the other off Walker’s bat – in five innings and struck out only four. But he was efficient when it mattered, and when he threw his final pitch – the one Walker crushed – the Guardians had a five-run lead.

Walker continues slugging streak

The primary source of offense for the Cardinals continued his scorching streak to start the season.

Walker added to his MLB-leading home run total with a leadoff homer to start the sixth inning. He pulled a sweeper from Williams into the Guardians’ bullpen for his eighth homer of the season. Walker has a home run in three consecutive games and in seven games he’s matched his total output of homers from the past season.

In 362 at-bats in 2025, Walker hit six home runs.

In the span of 28 at-bats over the past eight days, Walker has hit six home runs.

‘Make him earn it’

Cleveland starter Williams arrived in St. Louis with the tailwind of 18 strikeouts in his previous two games and 25 total whiffs in just 17 2/3 innings this season. He sported a snappy cutter that he could play off as a hard, sharper version of a wicked sweeping slider that he would throw more than any other pitch.

The Ks could come in bunches if the Cardinals took the wrong approach.

“Make him earn it,” manager Oli Marmol said before the game. “Make him earn those. He’s got a good mix. Obviously, it’s electric stuff. Make him earn every out, every strike.”

And through the first inning the Cardinals did.

The first three batters Williams faced all singled. By the time Williams got his first strikeout of the game, the Cardinals already tied the game, 1-1, and had two other runners on base awaiting the breakthrough hit. That didn’t come in the first inning despite sending seven batters to the plate and getting a late chance with the bases loaded. But what the Cardinals did do was force Williams to exchange a handful of pitches for every out he did get.

It took the right-hander 36 pitches to get three outs in the first inning. Contrast that with the 14 it took Liberatore to get through his first.

By the end of the second inning, rookie JJ Wetherholt alone had seen 14 pitches from Williams. Liberatore threw only 12 to get three outs in the second.

That the Cardinals couldn’t turn that work into more runs proves costly.

The script would flip from there.

Rough fourth all around

It took the Cardinals’ opening day starter only 44 pitches to get through the first three innings. He allowed a solo homer to the second batter he faced – and then not much else through the first third of the game. Liberatore struck out two in the second inning on a couple of awkward swings, and he got help from the defense to expediently slip through the third despite a four-pitch walk to the No. 9 hitter.

Brayan Rocchio was promptly thrown out trying to steal second. Pedro Pages made the throw, and Masyn Winn landed the nearly acrobatic tag.

The walks in the fourth inning would not be erased so deftly – or at all.

Liberatore walked the first two batters of the inning, Jose Ramirez and Rhys Hoskins, to prime the opportunity for the middle of the Guardians’ lineup. Before Liberatore was able to get an out in the fourth inning, the score was no longer tied. Designated hitter David Fry roped a single to left that loaded the bases for No. 6 hitter Daniel Schneemann.

Liberatore struck out Schneemann on three pitches in the second inning.

In the fourth, Schneemann was able to pulled a groundball toward right that skipped between two diving Cardinals infielders. Alec Burleson just missed it. JJ Wetherholt just missed it. Schneemann couldn’t have threaded the base hit any better by hand, and the pace of the hit was also enough for two teammates to score and break the tie game.

Austin Hedges added a sacrifice fly for a 4-1 lead at the end of four.

That out could have proved even worse for the Cardinals as left fielder Nathan Church appeared to forget how many outs there were. He camped under the fly ball as if to catch it – and head into the dugout, not set his feet and let loose with a throw to hold the runners. Fry was likely to score on the play even if challenged by Church’s strong arm, but the way Church caught the ball and didn’t pivot to throw allowed Schneemann to take second and get into scoring position.

He was stranded there.

Liberatore pitched around two singles to throw a scoreless fifth.

As Williams was gaining efficiency inning by inning against the Cardinals’ lineup, Liberatore was losing his. The lefty got nine outs on his first 44 pitches. It took 61 to get the next six outs. He threw his 95th pitch of the game with one out in the fifth inning, surpassed his previous career high of 101 a few batters later, and finished with 105 pitches. The taxing final two innings limited Liberatore’s evening to five innings.

A wheezing Cardinals bullpen had four left to cover.

That No. 9 hitter proves pesky

His four-pitch walk in the third inning turned out to be inconsequential when he was caught trying to steal second, but Rocchio would contribute as Cleveland widened its lead.

In the sixth – the first of the innings covered by the bullpen – Rocchio faced lefty Justin Bruihl and crushed a pitch 402 feet. Rocchio entered the game a .170 average at the tail end of the Guardians’ lineup. The two-run homer was his second of the season and nudged the Guardians out to a 6-2 lead moments before Walker’s homer.

The lead would grow larger before the Cardinals ever threatened.

In the top of the eighth, the Cardinals had Fry caught off third base as he rounded it too far and pitcher Ryan Fernandez had the ball a few strides from the mound and a short throw to third base. Third baseman Nolan Gorman called for the ball for the point-blank tag of Friday. Fernandez’s throw went wide and into foul territory, allowing Fry to score. And instead of the third out and a scoreless eighth, the inning got worse from there.

The Guardians scored three total – all unearned and all after the error.

____

©2026 STLtoday.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.