St. Louis spent the trade deadline selling, flipping Dustin May, JoJo Romero and Lars Nootbaar for prospects as the front office leaned into next year. Chicago spent it chasing Milwaukee, sitting second in the NL Central and holding the top NL Wild Card spot. That gap in stakes was always going to show up somewhere, and Friday it showed up on the scoreboard.
It wasn't competitive. The Cardinals managed just 3 hits and never got a runner past second, while the Cubs broke it open with a 3-run 6th inning and left it there. Holmes and Chicago's bullpen did the rest, needing exactly one big inning against a St. Louis offense that had shown some life against Colorado and Philadelphia earlier in the week.
Liberatore had already seen this lineup once before and it hadn't gone well — he got knocked around for 8 hits and 3 earned runs in just 3.2 innings the last time these two teams met. Friday was more of the same, and it puts the Cardinals in a hole to start a series they need to salvage against a Cubs team that's not letting up.