St Louis Cardinals: Liberatore impresses in first USA Baseball start

Top St Louis Cardinals prospect Matthew Liberatore drew the first start in the Olympic qualifiers. How did the 21-year-old do?

For the first time since 2008, there will be baseball in the Summer Olympics. While the games are happening a year later than they were supposed to be played, the chance for players around the world to represent their country is great to see. For fans who still aren’t sold, there are familiar names from the St Louis Cardinals on multiple rosters.

Specifically for Team USA, the team’s top prospect, Matthew Liberatore, is one of the bigger names on the pitching staff.

While the Olympic games don’t start until late July, the qualifying rounds are going on right now in Florida. Team USA manager Mike Scioscia chose to have the Cardinals’ young lefty on the mound to open up play, facing off against Nicaragua.

The games are being streamed on ESPN+, so they aren’t super accessible yet, but Baseball America’s Kyle Glaser is a great follow to keep track of how Team USA is doing. In his first start for the team, Liberatore did a great job by all accounts.

While it’d be great to see Liberatore sitting a little higher than 90-91 mph on his fastball, you can not complain about his final line. Averaging a hit per inning, Liberatore put Team USA in a good spot to win, and at the end that is exactly what they did with a final score of 7-1.

Liberatore is taking this two-month break from starting at Memphis for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to be an Olympian, and can you blame him?

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Making the jump from Low-A in 2019 to AAA in 2021 has been a big shift for the 21-year-old. Through four starts at Memphis, Liberatore has given up 13 runs over 21.1 innings. The Cardinals are being very aggressive with their top prospect, but he got rave reviews from his season at the team’s alternate site.

At the big leagues, the Cardinals could use another starter, but presumably, even if Liberatore was still at AAA, they wouldn’t give the lefty a call yet. It is unclear who gets priority over Liberatore in this case, the Cardinals or the Olympics, but he isn’t on the team’s 40-man yet, so there are plenty of hurdles between him and St. Louis.

For now, fans can just be glad Liberatore had a good start representing the United States and if he ends up on the final squad when they go to Tokyo next month, he’ll surely be who I’ve got my eyes on during the Olympics.