DENVER — A perfect debut continued while the Cardinals staged a patent-pending comeback they hadn’t pulled off in, say, at least a few hours.

When rookie Cooper Hjerpe took over the mound for his major league debut and began his streak of retiring 12 consecutive Rockies, nine without the ball leaving the infield, the Cardinals trailed by four runs. For a team that has defined itself from Day 1 by its ability to respond to deficits and turnover games, that was an inning’s worth of work.

The Cardinals stormed back for six runs in the decisive fifth inning to obliterate the Rockies’ early lead and take the series with a 10-8 win Sunday at Coors Field.

The rally with Hjerpe on the mound rewarded the rookie with his first big league win before he's given up his first big league hit.

A, ahem, rocky ninth got the tying run to the plate before George Soriano secured his third save of the season and the win.

The Cardinals, back at .500 with a 72-72 record, have gone 4-2 on the first two stops of this three-city swing into September. They played the Rockies as they were eliminated from playoff contention, and next up on the voyage is the lackluster San Francisco Giants.

Eight of the nine Cardinals starters in the lineup scored at least a run, and the middle of the order all participated in the rally. Nolan Gorman capped the comeback with a two-run homer to break a 5-5 tie. Ivan Herrera added his third hit of the game and two more RBIs in the eighth as the Cardinals extended their lead. Herrera also scored two runs.

In the series, he had eight RBIs.

The Cardinals knew starter Kyle Leahy would be limited in his innings and pitches, and he was gone after 2 2/3 and 55. They called on Hjerpe to cover those innings.

He did more than that.

He authored just wanted they needed for a comeback.

Hjerpe’s perfection in debut

Promoted officially Sunday morning to cover innings that afternoon, former first-round pick Hjerpe mixed in a little major league debut history, too.

The lefty was perfect through four relief innings.

He faced 12 Rockies; he retired 12 Rockies.

He struck out half of them.

He’s four innings and 54 pitches into his major league career and Hjerpe has yet to allow a base runner. The lefty with the delivery that can unnerve left-handed hitters took over in the fourth inning with the Cardinals trailing by four runs. He got his first major league strikeout on an Automated Ball-Strike System challenge, and he got better from there.

The Rockies did not get the ball out of the infield in his final three innings.

Colorado even unloaded its bench to get more right-handed batters against Hjerpe in the seventh inning, and Hjerpe retired them, too. He struck out the final two batters he faced and finished the outing with eight swings and misses. Three of the strikeouts he finished with a sweeper that averaged 77.6 mph and 45 inches of break as it bent 12 inches horizontally. He also showed a tighter, biting cutter at about 87 mph and a change-up he could drop at a velocity right between those two.

The 22nd overall pick in the 2022 draft, Hjerpe remained one of the Cardinals’ top pitching prospects even after he missed nearly two years due to elbow surgeries. He missed all of the 2025 season and half of this season recovering from Tommy John surgery. His rise through his rehab assignment and appearances with Triple-A Memphis has been sharp, and the Cardinals want to give him a peek at the majors now to prepare for 2027.

Hard to imagine a better beginning.

Hjerpe is the first player since Max Scherzer in 2008 to pitch at least four innings of relief in his major league debut and not allow a base runner. Scherzer pitched 4 1/3 innings for Arizona in his debut. Hjerpe yielded the mound to relievers after four innings.

Another comeback in the Cards

A lineup that’s already had its fair share of comebacks this season and shown an ability to sustain a rally didn’t necessarily need to pull another one off.

But it didn’t hurt.

Down by four entering the fifth inning, the Cardinals continued what has been a trend of the series: a burst of runs to flip a game. The Cardinals scored six runs on the Rockies and sent nine batters to the plate to not only chomp apart the lead but take one of their own. Six consecutive Cardinals scored in the inning with Gorman’s two-run homer offering the punctuation that broke a 5-5 tie.

And all of the runs came with two outs.

Herrera began the rally modestly enough with a single to right field. Alec Burleson continued to spray hard hits around the field and was rewarded with a double into the right field pocket. Jordan Walker walked to load the bases for rookie Leo Bernal. The switch-hitting catcher, who has been the regular at that position throughout the series, pulled a two-run single to right field that tightened the deficit to two runs.

Another rookie, Joshua Baez, followed with a single to center field that the Rockies outfielder Cole Carrigg misplayed off the bounce.

Carrigg pulled up as the ball came toward him, and in that flinch, the baseball found a gap between his face and his glove to go past him and roll toward center.

The Cardinals seized on the error to score twice and tie the game 5-5.

Three pitches later, they had the lead.

Since returning from two months at Class AAA Memphis to rework and revive his swing, Gorman had homered once prior to Sunday, at Busch Stadium in his second game back. The road trip had been less kind. Coming into Sunday’s series finale at Coors, Gorman had hits in both games against the Rockies, but he was overall 2 for 12 with six strikeouts after leaving St. Louis. That dipped to 2 for 14 in the first four innings Sunday before the rally found him in the fifth.

Gorman fell behind 0-2 against reliever Jimmy Herget.

The right-hander came back with a change-up at 84.9 mph that drifted right into Gorman’s power. Gorman put it over the high-rise fence in right-center field for his ninth homer of the season and the Cardinals’ first lead of the game.

Leahy leaves due to pitch limit

The pitch that did the most damage to Leahy's line was also the last one of the day that he threw.

Starting each game with a pitch limit the Cardinals have set to manage his workload and trim innings from this closing month, Leahy got through 55 pitches, and the 55th and final pitch of his day was a curveball a Rockie planted somewhere out there beyond the wall.

Perhaps aware of Leahy’s limits and factoring that into their approach, the usually eager Rockies did their best to see some pitches in the first inning. Leahy struck out two of the first three batters he faced and three total in the inning, but he also allowed three hits. He dealt with deep counts, and by the time he got out of the inning, he’d allowed two runs and thrown 26 pitches, nearly half of his prescribed allotment for the game.

Leahy got his groove in the second with two more strikeouts.

It took him 10 pitches to get three outs in a perfect second.

He encountered more turbulence in the third as the top of the Rockies order came back around to again pepper him with singles. Leahy retired the first two batters he faced before Colorado connected for three consecutive hits. Two singles prepped the bases, and Mickey Moniak’s three-run homer emptied them. Leahy was ahead in the count 1-2 when he unleashed the 84.1 mph curveball that Moniak hit for his 22nd homer

The pitch count went as planned even if the pitch result did not.

Leahy left the game there in the middle of the third inning after 55 pitches, and the Cardinals had Hjerpe prepared to take the remaining innings as if he was the starter.

The five runs Leahy allowed tied a career high, and the Rockies challenged him with six hits through 2 2/3 innings. Leahy struck out six and did not walk a batter to continue what has been a second-half surge in strikeout rate and effective command.

A local kid from Erie, Colo., who pitched at Coors Field in high school and is a product of the Boulder Valley School District, Leahy had one of his best nights as a reliever a year ago in Denver. A few hours after being with family to mourn the death of his grandmother, who was a Rockies season ticket holder, Leahy pitched 3 2/3 relief innings through the heart of a game to help the Cardinals win, 8-4. The Cardinals trailed by six runs when Leahy took over.

When Leahy left Sunday’s game, they trailed by four runs.

The Cardinals had the Rockies right where they wanted them.

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