ST. LOUIS — Best pals and often teammates since one was 5 and the other 4, Nolan Gorman and Matthew Liberatore had plenty of days together on a ballfield or traveling to another ballgame to dream about what they could someday do together in the majors.
They could not have imagined it going as well as a Saturday.
In his Busch Stadium debut, lefty Liberatore pitched five shutout innings for his first major league win and it came complete with a four-hit day from his boyhood friend, Gorman. The Cardinals’ second baseman went 4 for 4 with a home run and four RBIs to lift the Cardinals to an 8-3 victory against division rival Milwaukee.
Gorman’s first big league homer was just the beginning.
The second batter of the first inning, Gorman greeted Brewers’ right-hander Adrian Houser with a home run that soared over the Cardinals’ bullpen and into the seats, 449 feet away from home plate. Gorman’s teammate started shouting to the fans and negotiating a way to get the baseball from the milestone hit — not only Gorman’s first major league homer but also the farthest hit by a Cardinal this season. And the day would get batter from there.
In four swings, Gorman raised his batting average from .238 to .360. In the third inning, he paired with Paul Goldschmidt to drive the five-run rally that seized early control of the game.
Goldschmidt's three-run homer in the inning provided most of the runs and extended his hitting streak to 19 games. He has reached base a career-best 33 consecutive games.
Gorman, a rookie left-handed slugger, had a hot start to his big league arrival, but he cooled recently with the breeze of strikeouts. It didn’t take long for teams to start testing him with elevated fastballs, up on the tough shelf where he and the Cardinals knew he had a time reaching. Houser didn’t elevate his 95-mph fastball enough in the first inning, and Gorman socked it into the seats. In the fourth inning, Houser went back to that pitch, got it up higher, and Gorman drilled it for a double.
In three swings, Gorman had three of the hardest-hit baseballs of the game and four RBIs. The double came in an at-bat when he was down 0-2 and hitting with two outs.
With Gorman at second, Goldschmidt singled him home for a 6-0 lead.
That RBI was Goldschmidt’s 30th of the month.
Gorman’s performance backed a lifelong teammate and friend. With the exception of high school, Gorman and Liberatore played most of their youth baseball together in the Phoenix area. They were both considered potential top-10 picks in the same draft, and they had pledged to reunite for college by committing to Arizona. The Cardinals selected Gorman 19th overall in the 2018 draft, three spots after Tampa Bay took Liberatore. It wasn’t until January 2020 that Gorman received a phone call while golfing from his buddy to break the news: He had been traded to the Cardinals. Together again. Their promotion to the majors was announced earlier this month on the same day. Together forever in that regard.
Recalled from Class AAA Memphis to take Steve Matz’s spot in the rotation while the veteran recovers from shoulder soreness, Liberatore pitched well in his major league debut, but he did not complete the fifth inning in a game the Cardinals won at PNC Park. He began his home debut with consecutive strikeouts, retiring Milwaukee shortstop Luis Urias on a 94-mph fastball. But Liberatore also got through innings more efficiently from there. He got his first 12 outs on 88 pitches, and that was while pitching around an error, a walk, and two baserunners in the fourth inning.
With runners on, he maintained a solid tempo and he had stuff to escape with a strikeout. In the fourth, he got Keston Hiura to strike out on a foul tip, and then he slipped free of trouble in the inning with a 92-mph fastball up and in at the corner of the strike zone that caught Lorenzo Cain looking.
Liberatore (1-0) struck out six in his five innings
He is the first lefty with at least six strikeouts in his St. Louis debut for the Cardinals since Joe Magrane had six in eight innings in May 1987.
Jake Woodford pitched three innings and carried the lead into the late innings eliminating his eligibility for the open start Monday against San Diego. The Cardinals also have lefty Packy Naughton available for that start, though his promotion would require a roster move ahead of that afternoon’s game.
The Cardinals had a seven-run lead with two strikes and two outs in the ninth inning before Milwaukee’s No. 9 hitter, catcher Victor Caratini, hit a two-run homer of lefty T. J. McFarland. That bruised the ERA and tilted the run differential, but it did not change the outcome. With consecutive wins against the first-place Brewers, the Cardinals play for the series victory Sunday.
