Nothing else has worked. Grant Holmes gets the start.
Well, the Braves’ cursed season continues, and now it’s time for the annual trip to St. Louis, home of the Cardinals’ storied devil magic. The Braves are [record redacted for sanity] but with basically everything indicating they’ve played akin to a .500 team; the Cardinals are 50-44, currently a game out of a playoff spot with playoff odds right around 1-in-3, with production not much better than what the Braves have amassed.
The Cardinals are 12th in position player fWAR, with good defensive marks (now second in MLB) propping up an okay offense. They’re 14th in pitching fWAR, with both the rotation and bullpen in that above-average-but-not-by-much place. There also hasn’t really been any devil magic this year, as the Cardinals are neither notably outplaying their production nor doing something like outhitting their xwOBA by a lot, or whatever. They’re just kind of there, but in today’s league, that’s enough to be a contender.
On the season, the Cardinals can basically credit their relevance to a 19-8 May; they’ve gone 17-19 since and had a 14-17 start to the season. One great month can cover for a lot, and has done a lot of work for the aforementioned relevance given that the Cardinals didn’t do much of anything in the offseason, were projected (central estimate-wise) as a 79-win team with playoff odds below 1-in-4, and are still projected to finish below .500 despite being six games over at the moment. Masyn Winn has excelled defensively while Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras have brought the batting; their pitching is fronted by Sonny Gray and Matthew Liberatore (tonight’s starter), while benefiting from a crazy-good run with few homers allowed from Phil Maton and some nice bulk relief work from Steven Matz.
Tonight’s matchup will feature Grant Holmes making his 19th start of the year. Holmes has an 83 ERA-, 107 FIP-, and 92 xFIP- on the season. His line is ultimately evocative of a silly goose. He has somehow avoided getting charged with runs in aggregate, but tends to get bombed homer-wise. As a result, his actual pitching value is akin to a fourth starter or something, but the peripherals suggest something better than that, and his ERA being comically low anyway just makes the whole thing into an adventure novel. For whatever it’s worth, the HR/FB has stopped torturing him lately, and his low ERA is driven by his last five starts, where he has a good 41/16 K/BB ratio and has only allowed two homers, but has, in aggregate, only been charged with six earned runs (one unearned, too) in the process.
Holmes had two long relief appearances against the Cardinals last year where he didn’t really excel, and missed them earlier this year.
In his first full year as a starter, Liberatore is breaking out a bit for the Cardinals, with a 91/81/95 line. Maybe the devil magic this year is not getting popped for homers, which explains why the Braves are cursed in that department? We’ll see. That said, Liberatore’s season has had its ups and downs. He was really good for his first nine starts, with just two homers allowed and a 47/8 K/BB ratio, but then the worm turned and he allowed five longballs in just four starts. He then bounced back with a couple of good outings, until running into some serious issues in his last two starts — a combined 9/9 K/BB ratio, even though he’s been charged with just two runs in that span.
Liberatore dominated the Braves last year in one of the best starts of his career (six innings 8/1 K/BB ratio, no runs charged to him); he also missed facing the Braves earlier this season.
Game Info
Game Date/Time: Friday, July 11, 8:15 p.m. EDT
Location: Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO
TV: FanDuel Sports South / Southeast
Streaming: MLB.tv
Radio: 680 AM / 93.7 FM The Fan