The Cardinals' ability to do what the Cubs couldn't when a scoring chance presented itself in the first inning of a Sunday night series finale between longtime division rivals made all the difference in the box score in a rubber match at Busch Stadium.

After seeing starter Matthew Liberatore work around two singles to keep the Cubs scoreless in the first inning, the Cardinals made the most of their first-inning opportunity by pushing across two runs vs. Cubs starter Jordan Wicks, the first of which came on a single from Jordan Walker. They kept pressure on the Cubs and Wicks with gritty at-bats that drove Wicks' pitch count to 46 by the end of the second inning and got him out of the game one batter into the third.

The early production continued with RBI hits from Alec Burleson and Masyn Winn against reliever Ethan Roberts that built up a five-run lead that the Cubs could only shrink to four in a 5-1 Cardinals win.

Aided by an arsenal that included a fastball that averaged 95.5 mph and a curveball that sat at 80.5 mph, both of which were increases of 1.4 mph or higher than average this season, Liberatore worked 5 1/3 scoreless innings to get his first winning decision since May 7.

Coming off a career-high 10-strikeout performance in Milwaukee, Liberatore retired 16 of the final 18 Cubs he faced after allowing two singles to open the outing.

He handed the lead over to new arrival Hunter Dobbins, who was recalled from Class AAA Memphis on Sunday to provide length in relief if it was needed.

The fresh arm came in handy.

Dobbins protected the Cardinals lead with 3 2/3 innings in relief, where he allowed just one run, which came on a solo homer surrendered to Alex Bregman in the sixth inning. The relief work earned Dobbins his first save in professional baseball.

A tale of two firsts

The two division rivals began the first inning in a similar fashion. They received back-to-back singles from the first two batters they sent to the plate. Only one team cashed in on the scoring chance.

In the top half of the first, Liberatore surrendered singles to Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong. He navigated the sticky situation with a combination of weak contact and whiff.

Liberatore worked back from a 2-0 count to strike out Bregman in a five-pitch battle that ended with whiffs on a change-up and a curveball. He ran a 95.9 mph fastball in on Seiya Suzuki to induce a weak pop-up to shortstop. A six-pitch sequence that began with back-to-back change-ups vs. Ian Happ ended with Liberatore getting the longtime Cub to chase below the strike zone on a curveball that got Strike 3 and got him out of the inning.

Making the most of their chance

For the Cardinals, the bottom half of the first began with singles from JJ Wetherholt and Ivan Herrera. Unlike Liberatore, Wicks could not wiggle his way out of the inning unscathed.

The Cardinals collected a third consecutive single against Wicks with a line drive Walker hit to right field. Walker's single scored Wetherholt and kept the momentum moving in the inning.

In the two at-bats that followed, ground outs from Nelson Velazquez and Burleson advanced Herrera 90 feet at a time to score an additional run.

Going to Dobbins

Equipped with a fresh arm in their bullpen who could provide them multiple innings, Cardinals manager Oli Marmol elected to pull Liberatore from his start after 5 1/3 scoreless innings and 85 pitches.

The only offense allowed by Liberatore between Crow-Armstrong's single and the final out he collected was a leadoff walk to Dansby Swanson in the third inning and a one-out single by Kelvin Alcantara in the fifth. Liberatore ended his outing by retiring Crow-Armstrong to start the sixth, paving the way for the clean inning Marmol felt ahead of the game would be an ideal entrance for Dobbins.

Making his second appearance in the majors this season and first in relief, Dobbins began his outing by allowing Bregman to homer on just his third. The homer came on a slider that was left over the middle of the plate.

Dobbins followed the rocky start by settling in and working around traffic when it built.

In the seventh, one-out single from Michael Busch and a double from pinch hitter Michael Conforto put the right-hander in a tricky spot as the top of the Cubs lineup neared. He fell behind Swanon 3-0 before getting strikes on the next three pitches to earn a strikeout.

A sinker to coax an inning-ending ground out vs. Hoerner thwarted the threat.

The only other hit allowed by Dobbins came with two outs in the ninth. That was negated with a game-ending fly out.

Adding on

After Cubs manager Craig Counsell dug into his bullpen with no outs in the third inning, the Cardinals welcomed Roberts by tallying three hits against the right-handed reliever.

Roberts got ahead of Walker with a whiff on a sinker, then was successful in getting Walker to chase a pair of sweepers that broke out of the strike zone. A sharply hit lineout from Velazquez that found Bregman’s glove instead of the outfield grass got Roberts the second out of the inning.

It wasn’t until Burleson worked a favorable count and got a favorable drop that the Cardinals capitalized on another scoring chance.

Burleson fished a 2-1 sinker from Roberts and blooped a single down the left field line that dropped in between Happ and Bregman to score Wetherholt. In the at-bat that followed, with Burleson standing on second base following his advancement on Happ’s throw to the cutoff man during his single, Winn took the first three pitches he saw from Roberts before scorching a 2-1 sweeper to center field for a two-run double that expanded the Cardinals' lead to 5-0.

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