Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Should The St. Louis Cardinals Consider Shutting Down Matthew Liberatore And Masyn Winn?

Starting point is 00:00:00 The St. Louis Cardinals drop an absolute dud on Sunday in Florida. Is it time to start thinking about shutting down Matthew Libertor? This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals. I'm J.D. Hafford and I'm your host for Locked on Cardinals.

Starting point is 00:00:29 Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network covering your team every day. You can find me on X and J.D. Sports. radio as well as the podcast on X at L0.1 underscore Cardinals. Find us on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, a lockdown cardinals. This is a show, survey cardinal nation and giving you all of the info about the bird's on the bat. Today's episode brought to you by five-hour energy and for a chance to win a dream trip for two to any golf tournament in the USA. Visit 5HEWIN.com for full rules and entry, no purchase necessary. Excludes the master's tournament in October 31st, 2025. Halloween. It's getting spooky. around the Cardinals right now.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Things are not going well. The St. Louis Cardinals did not have a good day on Sunday, although the future looks mighty bright with J.J. Weatherhole waiting in the wings. He continues to just crush it at AAA. Memphis. We'll discuss what's going on with him and the upcoming series with the Pirates, all coming up in today's episode. But let's get through what we saw on Sunday, which, let's be honest, it wasn't all that pretty.

Starting point is 00:01:32 It didn't start off so bad for Matthew Libertori. who, you know, facing the team that drafted him first round back in 2018 before trading him to the Cardinals part of that deal for Jose Martinez and Randy a Rosarena back in 2020. You know, Libby moved to the rotation this year, a move that, you know, for the long term seems to be the right move, right? I was initially nervous about taking someone who was as good as Libby was in the bullpen last year and removing him from the mix to go back to the rotation. with the lack of depth of starters that are in this organization to do to bad player development and injuries, the move was smart. And it looked really good early on in this year when after the first two months of the season, he was three and four, but he had an ERA of 3.06 over 11 starts.

Starting point is 00:02:23 So a heck of a start. Then June, things did start to slide a little bit for Levy. He had a couple of bad outings mixed with some very good ones as well, which allowed him to go three and two, but the ERA jumped to. 5.14. And that's when you had that first fatigue scare, if you remember. And his mechanics kind of got out of whack. He saw the VLO drop a little bit. And we're like, uh-oh, he's not hurt, right? Ended up he wasn't hurt. He was okay. Ended up rebounding just fine with three straight wins against the white socks, the Cubs, and then the Guardians throwing 19 innings, striking out 14 with an

Starting point is 00:02:56 IRA of 1.89 against Cleveland. He was really good. If you remember, he fired, what was it, six innings. shutout, six shutout innings and five strikeouts. He had five walks in that game too, but things appeared to be headed in the right direction again. That game against Cleveland on June 29th was the last time Libby has won a game so far this season. Here we are in August 25th and he still hasn't picked up another W since that day at the end of June. Since then he's made eight starts. He's gone 0 and 5. The team is 3 and 5 in his starts.

Starting point is 00:03:30 Has a lot of 41 hits in 34 innings, 22 earned runs, just 22. strikeouts. Things didn't get any better on Sunday either for him. When, much like his season so far, he started off good before trouble finally found him following a four and a half hour rain delay, which was brutal. This is why Florida teams have roofs on their big league parks. It's because of the rain that is constant in Florida, basically a rainforest atmosphere there. Libby and the boys had to take the field. just hot, sticky, muggy, just nasty.

Starting point is 00:04:09 It was just a nasty day. Don't get me wrong, the race had to play in this soup as well. But man, it just feels like the cartels have put up with some real brutal weather so far this season for them. No matter where they go, whether it's at home, it's always 100 degrees outside. They go on the road. It's disgusting wherever they're playing. It's just been tough. And I'm not trying to give them an excuse, but, you know, it's just, they look miserable

Starting point is 00:04:34 out there in a lot of these series. Anyway, Libby gets through those first three innings with relative ease. Nothing alarming happened, a couple of singles. Although the last out in the third inning off of the bat of junior Caminara was a missile. That was what, 112 off the bat to end the inning, kind of a sign of things to come in this one. Fourth inning, two outs. It's former Cub Christian Morrell, who breaks the seal on the scoring for the game with a two-out solo shot, fastball, inner half. And Morrell turns on it lifts it out of the ballpark, one-nothing. and raised. No big deal. Falls leave the yard in that ballpark quite frequently. So really not a big deal. Nothing bad about that. You're like, okay, the guy put a good swing on it, knocked it out of the park.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Okay. Fifth inning was a different story now. This is where it was really on Libby, you know, that he was the one that was causing the problems. Lead off guy, a lefty. And I always screw this up. Is it Josh Lowe or is he Josh Lowe? I think he's a Josh. I think he's low, right? It's incredible that they have the lows and the lows all on the same team. He's low, Josh Lowe. All right. I always screw up that. I know Nathaniel Lowe.

Starting point is 00:05:44 There's a couple of them right there. Anyway, but he leads off. He's a left-hander, leads off, and Libby walks him on five pitches. Big no-no, no, no. We know this. He knows that. That's a problem. And everything was outside in a way.

Starting point is 00:05:58 It wasn't like he was nibbling and missing. Everything was off the play. It didn't look good. Next at bat. is their rookie stud, Carson Williams. This was BS. This abat was crap because Williams, a rookie, gets not one, but two calls on pitches that were in the zone and they're called balls. I don't know why.

Starting point is 00:06:24 One of them, I guess you could say was tight in the zone. The other one was a strike. It was in the zone. I don't even know how you miss that. But two of them go to the rookie instead of Matthew Libertor ends up working an eight-pitch walk because of that. It should have been an out. Let me get screwed there. Pitch is three and five.

Starting point is 00:06:47 Both hit the zone according to the MLB strike zone. I cannot wait for the ABS. So this kind of horse manure can stop happening to pitchers. Next center tries to bunt, but Gorman snags it, one out. Thank you very much. We'll take that. But then the rays pull off, double steel, something there, very, very good at. They steal a lot of bases, and we know the Cardinals aren't great at holding

Starting point is 00:07:07 people on, so they get the runners over anyways. Then Libby gets real wild again with the abat against Simpson, Chandler Simpson, another lefty, which, you know, these are the matchups that you want Libby to dominate it and to have him struggle in the sitting against the lefties. That's not what you like to see. So ends up walking Simpson as well. Now you got the bases loaded for the Ray's most dangerous hitter in Junior Camerara. 20 pitches. inning, pushed Libby to 73 and four and a third innings. And Ali didn't want him facing the righty Caminero, who scalded the ball in his last at bat against him.

Starting point is 00:07:45 So he calls on Matt Fonson, who had been really, really good, something like 15, almost 16 scoreless innings. So he was on a roll. He's a right-hander coming into face Camerro. I got no problems with this. I got a problem with this at all. But unfortunately, Sonson, one pitch was all at three. took fastball over the heart of the plate. It was up in the zone. Caminero obliterates it over the

Starting point is 00:08:08 wall in right field for an apococo grand slam is 37th thinger of the season. That makes it a five to nothing lead for the race. Basically, game set match right there. Like I said before, the ball can fly at Steinbrenner Field. So it's not that I was giving up on the Cardinals, but the way things were going and the way they were looking for them offensively and just the body language of the team, it just felt like that was it. That was going to do it. Libby's final. numbers, four and a third innings, four runs, three hits, three walks, five Ks, one home run. Four innings into it, they were fine. And then he hits a wall in that fifth inning, didn't get a lot of help in the umpire

Starting point is 00:08:48 in that second walk. And it's kind of what Libby's been doing, you know, has kind of been the issue for him recently. He's just not pitching deep into games and not pitching all that great anyway. you know, it's not like they're pulling him when he's, you know, only giving up like one run on three hits over four and a third or something. No, he's in trouble when this is happening. So should the Cardinals consider shutting down that clibutory? You know, is that something that is on the table right now?

Starting point is 00:09:20 It doesn't sound like that's what they're thinking about. It doesn't sound like they're considering that right now. Now, Derek Gold from SCL Today.com put out an article and he had a quote from Ollie after the game about. Libby pitching deeper into games. And Ali said, it's something you want to see. I think we've been building toward that. It was more the walks that chased him and the better matchup for Sonson.

Starting point is 00:09:43 It's something to work toward. I think he'll get over the hump. So to me, it sounds like they're not thinking about shutting him down by any means. The Cardinals aren't reporting any issues with them. They're keeping an eye on things. They've said that before when you start to see the VLO drops in certain games. And they're like, all right, you know, we're going to monitor.

Starting point is 00:10:02 We'll keep an eye on this. I certainly don't think they are wanting to risk future damage to him just to get through this particular season, which is slowly but surely falling into the toilet. It's a shame there isn't more starting pitching depth in the organization right now to help out with this, although Quinn Matthews pitched very, very good on Sunday once again, and has been excellent over like the last month or so. But there's just not a lot of pitching depth as far as starting rotation goes. It's why no matter how much fans cry, they're not.

Starting point is 00:10:33 going to just drop Miles Michaelis. They're not going to move on from Andre Palante as a part of this rotation right now. They just don't have the arm to do that. They are doing their best to piece things together just for the bullpen right now with the rotation and the bullpen, which just had to do a lot of shuffling around since the trade deadline. You know, you take three capable arms out of the bullpen and you got to fill not only those holes, but you got rid of Fetty at the same time, so you got to fill that hole. So there's been a lot for them to overcome. Offensively, the team didn't have a whole lot going on either in this game. Ray started Ryan Pepey out was right.

Starting point is 00:11:10 Pepio. No T at the end. I don't know why I said it that way. Anyway, he was quoted as saying that, you know, the Cardinals came out more aggressive than we expected. This was the part that got me. I was like, oh, they might have been wanting to go home. He says they just came out firing. It was a six pitch first inning.

Starting point is 00:11:28 Then I threw more pitches to Contreras and his bat in the second inning than I did the whole first. So just filling up the zone, getting ahead early, and then making them hit their way on. Whatever the reason was that they were swinging early in counts, it didn't work. Cardinals had only one hit. They got shut out until the seventh inning. We were able to get on the board on Jordan Walker's RBI single with two outs in the seventh. It scored Burley. Then in the ninth, Burley scores again on Nolan Gorman's single.

Starting point is 00:11:55 But that's really all they can muster, man. It was not a whole lot of fun to watch. the offense, which doesn't have Nott, Donnie, or Victor Scott, also without Mason Wendt, who continues to battle a knee issue. Would this injury open the door for, say, a JJ Weatherhole to come on up to the roster? We'll discuss that coming up next on Lockdown Cardinals. Time to fuel up and turn it up with five-hour energy transfusion. The grape ginger and lime-flavored shot brings the iconic taste of a golf course favorite

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Starting point is 00:13:33 Thanks again for making a lot on Carlos. Your first listen every day. Leave your comments on YouTube as well as on X or a TikTok anytime you want. Your feedback is always welcome and encourage. We also have an important request. Locked on wants to hear from you. We've put together a survey to learn more about our listeners and make your favorite podcasts even better. This is your chance to tell us what you like,

Starting point is 00:13:51 which you don't, and answer questions about our advertising. So go to Lockdown Podcast.com slash survey to get started. Everyone who completes a survey will be entered for a chance to win one of $10, $100 Amazon gift cards. Again, that's locked on podcasts. dot com slash survey you can also find the link in the show notes thank you for helping us out we do appreciate that so mason win has been dealing with this knee injury for quite some time now you know all-star break we found out that is when hey he's been dealing with some soreness and some

Starting point is 00:14:24 pain he had that anti-inflammatory shot to help with it help him deal with it the preference for for mason was that he wanted to play through it he felt like he was fine and He wanted to keep going. He wants to be there for the team. He wants to play. And that's great. But you're at a part of the season now where things aren't so good, right? And he was out of the lineup on Sunday and was scheduled to have an MRI today.

Starting point is 00:14:52 On Monday, I have not seen an update about anything that has to do with his MRI yet. I know they were hopeful that he'd be able to return to the lineup on Monday against the Pirates. but like I said, scouring, trying to see if there's anything, but I haven't seen anything so far about Mason Wins' knees. So hopefully that's good news. But it doesn't sound great that, you know, one of your best players and one of your young studs is dealing with an injury. And similar to Libby, is the rest of the season really worth risking more damage

Starting point is 00:15:28 to someone like Mason who is a cornerstone of your franchise? I read that the plan is maybe some arthroscopic surgery in the offseason. It's about pain management at this point. Like, do I need my guy playing through all that pain right now for this season? When you were in the hunt and you were still battling for a spot, sure. Like, let's go. But at this point, I certainly don't think so. And the difference here is if he needs to miss time,

Starting point is 00:15:59 you got a few capable infielders to play in his place. It's not like Matthew Libertor where starting rotation depth is scarce. Like you got guys. You know, Gorman is holding down third base right now, but obviously he can play some second base with Nato out. For me and it's the J.C can handle second base and shortstop if need be. But you've also got J.J. Weatherhole sitting here, waiting, crushing the ball at AAA Memphis. He's there.

Starting point is 00:16:27 And if Basing needs to hit the IEL, why not let J.J. taste of the big leagues. What's a big deal? JJ was facing reigning NL.Sai Young Award winner, Chris Sale on Sunday. Did all right. Had two hits against him, including a double, had three hits in the game in the five game series against Gwinnett, which they just wrapped up. He had nine hits, drove in three and two stolen bases and is now hitting 328 since getting promoted to Memphis with nine home runs and 20 RBIs and 31 games. Like he's annihilating the baseball. He looks fantastic. Cardinals don't really have a whole lot of reasons for fans to come to the ballpark right now. Like, I'm nervous to see what these crowds are going to look like against the Pittsburgh Pirates over the next four days.

Starting point is 00:17:11 Like, it's going to be bad. And there's not a lot of things generating interest in the team, not only to come to the ballpark and spend money, but also just watching them on TV. Adding JJ to the roster would surely add a jolt of interest to this team. That's for sure. Now, our, I, are going to guy Thomas Goveman from Redwood Brants.com, who is going to be on the show tomorrow. he's scheduled to be. Recently put out three arguments for and against, adding JJ to the roster. So make sure you guys check that out if you haven't already, but we'll talk with Thomas about that tomorrow. But my whole thing was coming into this was just the numbers crunch.

Starting point is 00:17:50 You know, you had Mason when it's shortstop. You still want to be able to see what Thomas C. He offers you. But if Mason goes down and needs to spend some time on the IL, no offense to Jose for mean, but wouldn't you rather give JJ a taste of the pros like some of the other teams are doing with their top prospects right now? Wouldn't you like to do that? I'm sure there are different reasons for not bringing him up when it comes to salary and stuff like, you know, things of that nature where, you know, starting his clock going, whatever. But as somebody who's just a fan and

Starting point is 00:18:28 wants to watch the Cardinals bringing JJ Weatherhold up to the roster would certainly have me tuning in. You know, I wouldn't want to miss that. I wouldn't. If I had a chance to get down the ballpark, I would go to the ballpark if I had a chance to get down there to go see JJ play. That's exciting. That's fun. And I would love to see what he could do against some of the some of the pitching that, you know, pirates are bringing into town. And, you know, they're going to be going to Cincinnati coming up this weekend. I mean, I feel like that would be cool to see him going up against, you know, some of the division rivals.

Starting point is 00:19:06 So let me know what you think about this. Like, you think it's a good or a bad idea to bring JJ or keep him down if Mason win has to miss time. If he doesn't have to miss time and he's available to play and says he's good to go, then you let Mason play. But I don't see the pressure in making him go out there with a troublesome knee. Like, I don't want that to bother. him for years to come. Do you? I don't. So I'd rather clean it up and get it taken care of right

Starting point is 00:19:34 away and then be ready to go in the spring. So, but that's just me. That's just me. So we'll keep you posted on anything that has to do with Mason Wins knee. But we'll see what happens, whether or not this opens the door for J.J. Weatherholds come up or not. We're going to talk about this pirate series coming up next here on Locked on Cardinals. August 26th is officially Fandle Futures Day. It's a brand new holiday for football fans who, live for bold predictions and preseason hunches for just 24 hours. Fanduel is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you're calling out who your MVP is going to be this year,

Starting point is 00:20:12 your eyeing up a long shot division winner, or maybe you're just ready to crown the Super Bowl champion before week one, even kicks off. This is going to be your moment. September 4th is when the season kicks off officially. And August 26th, that's your chance here with the official Fandul Futures Day. take a flyer on the MVP on the MVP race like last year it was Josh Allen he was awesome rarely do MVPs go back to back anymore it doesn't happen very often but usually it's a quarterback there's

Starting point is 00:20:40 plenty of them out there that are pretty darn good uh Joe Burrow jailin hurts obviously is somebody Lamar Jackson's always in contention so um maybe take one of those other guys other than Josh Allen but you can have Josh Allen if you want but use that knowledge that you have and this fan to a lab today and start planning your futures bets now because futures day is one day and one day only. Fandu, play your game. Thank you again for making Lockton Carnot's first listens today for your second list and check out the new Locked-on MLB game night.

Starting point is 00:21:18 It's every game. You get local analysis on a national scale. You can find MLB game night on the Locked-on MLB YouTube channel or wherever you listen to your podcast. Myself and John Frisch will be your hosts for the next few nights. So come on by and see us. Cardinals fell to 64 and 67 on Sunday. They got the Pittsburgh Pirates in town for a four-game series starting on Monday.

Starting point is 00:21:41 It'll be Michael McGreevy on the hill against former Cardinal, Johann O. Vado. McGreevy, I mean, is there really anything bad to say about this kid? He has been excellent since taking over as a full-time member of the rotation. You know, it sucked that the Cardinals waited and waited and waited and kept hoping that Eric Fetty would turn things around because McGreevy, all he's done is come in and solidify the rotation a bit. He's giving you the same innings, but he's given you a chance to win,

Starting point is 00:22:09 which is something Eric Fetty was not doing for like two months. And they just kept waiting and hoping that he would turn it around. It never worked. And it costs the Cardinals dearly as far as how this season ended up playing out. He's had one hiccup, one hiccup so far against the Padres, who were going to go to the playoffs. They're neck and neck with that. I think they're tied with the Dodgers now for the NFL.

Starting point is 00:22:31 West again. But he's just been a steady influence on this rotation. And he's coming off a win over the Marlins last week where he was really good against six inning, two earned runs, struck out five. He doesn't walk people, doesn't put himself in problematic areas during a game. It's usually if he's going to give up anything, it's usually because an error has happened, which happened to him against the Marlins, which is why there were four runs scored off him. only two were earned. And then, of course, I think it was his own air, too, without the one. That was the one that he threw away, I think. But you got the air and then, you know, he'll give up some hits from time to time because he's not a, you know, big strikeout guy. He's a pitch to

Starting point is 00:23:12 contact guy. But he's been really, really good. It's been fun to watch. When he's on the mound, you feel like you got a chance to win. You can't always say that about some of the other guys in the rotation right now, can you? He has not faced the pirates yet this season, but they come in And they're rolling right now. The Pirates went five and one last week. They took two of three against the Blue Jays and then swept the Rockies. They've won four in a row as they come to St. Louis. Apparently only the Cardinals struggle against the Rockies, which is super sad.

Starting point is 00:23:42 You lost four of six to the Colorado Rockies this year. Unbelievable. Oviedo and Mitch Keller are the only announced starter. So Oviedo tonight, Keller on Tuesday for the Pirates so far, They did call up their top pitching prospect, Bubba Chandler, which is somebody you might want to watch because he's awesome. Him and Skeens together. That's pretty naughty. He was outstanding in his debut.

Starting point is 00:24:05 He did not get a start, but came in a relief and it was awesome. He was awesome. The Cardinals sent out some probabilities for the pirates outside of those two games, but neither of them were Chandler or Paul Skeens for what it's worth. Skeens continues to be as dominant as ever. now has the second lowest ERA in the live ball era over his first 50 games at 2.02. So it's not going to hurt my feelings if they have to miss Paul Skeens in this series. Although the Cardinals still haven't lost to him yet. And it's kind of a must-watch TV when Paul Skeins is on the mound,

Starting point is 00:24:42 even if it is going to be against the Cardinals and the odds beating him are not great. But still, they haven't fallen to him yet. Not yet. Scott has got their number. the birds have a seven game lead over the pirates to stay out of the cellar in the NL Central. All right. You have four games here against them. You're five and a half back in the wild card.

Starting point is 00:25:05 I know I said we're not going to talk playoffs and we're not. But you currently have a losing record against the pirates this season at four and five. All right. You have a chance to turn that around over the next four days. Let's do that. Let's get some, some wins here. Let's get a small overall victory for the season and have a winning record against the Pirates. Can we do that?

Starting point is 00:25:28 Can we do that? I would like to see that. All right? And it's going to start with Michael McGreevy tonight, who I would expect to be good. I would expect him to be very good. So I'll be tuning in for it. So make sure you're following along on Twitter or X, as it's called, to find out what's going on there. Let's check one more time, see if we got any updates on anything with Mason,

Starting point is 00:25:51 and when I am not seeing anything so far. So let's check this real fast, real fast, since I got you at the end here. No, we got nothing. We got nothing with Mason when yet. So no lineups yet. So I don't know if he's in there or not. But again, keep following at X.

Starting point is 00:26:14 We'll get you all the updates and let you know what's going on with Mason if anything breaks. But thank you for making a long time cart. Let's your first listen every day, If you haven't already, give us a follow on next. If you haven't already at L.O underscore Cardinals and a JDB sports radio, TikTok, and Instagram at Lockedong Cardinals. Like, subscribe on YouTube, help our channel in love for the Cardinals grow. You guys are the best fans in baseball for a reason.

Starting point is 00:26:34 We'll see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.

Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Should The St. Louis Cardinals Consider Shutting Down Matthew Liberatore And Masyn Winn?

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