Matthew Liberatore starts for Cardinals as St. Louis opens 4-game series vs Cubs

Matthew Liberatore gets the ball for St. Louis on Monday night as the Cardinals open a four-game home series against the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium, with first pitch set for 6:45 p.m. Per MLB.com, the Cubs will counter with left-hander David Peterson.

What happened

Per MLB.com, the Cardinals will send Liberatore to the mound for the series opener, with Peterson starting on the Chicago side. The broadcast is available through Cardinals.tv, per Yahoo Sports.

The series runs through Wednesday, giving both clubs four games at Busch Stadium. Tuesday's probable matchup has Michael McGreevy going for St. Louis against Colin Rea, and Wednesday lines up Dustin May against Matthew Boyd, per the upcoming schedule.

Why it matters

The Cardinals enter this series in a place that requires a certain kind of honesty about the standings. St. Louis sits at 77-85 (.475), fourth in the NL Central, 26 games back in the division, and has been eliminated from both the division race and the Wild Card race. The club is also riding a four-game losing streak heading into Monday night.

None of that makes the Cubs series meaningless — rivalry games have a way of generating their own gravity regardless of the standings — but it does reframe what "crucial" looks like at this stage of the season. The Cardinals are playing for development, for competitive pride, and for the kind of internal evaluation that shapes a roster over the winter. A four-game set against a division rival at home is exactly the kind of extended look that matters when the front office is watching.

For Peterson and the Cubs, the context is different. Chicago is visiting a club that has been eliminated, which means the pressure gradient runs almost entirely in one direction. How Peterson handles a Busch Stadium crowd that still shows up for Cubs-Cardinals regardless of the standings is its own kind of data point.

Where the club stands

St. Louis is 77-85 (.475), fourth in the NL Central, and 26 games back in the division. The Wild Card door is closed as well, with the Cardinals sitting seventh in that race at 11.0 games relative to the cut line. The current losing streak stands at four games.

The four-game home series against Chicago represents the bulk of the Cardinals' immediate schedule. After Liberatore on Monday and McGreevy on Tuesday, Dustin May draws the Wednesday start against Matthew Boyd. That gives St. Louis three different starters in three days against a division rival — a stretch that will be watched closely by anyone trying to understand how the Cardinals plan to construct their pitching staff going forward.

Three different starters across three consecutive days against the same opponent is the kind of rotation deployment that tells you something about where each arm stands in the organization's thinking, even if the standings no longer require the club to optimize for wins above all else. The Cubs, meanwhile, are playing meaningful baseball, which means the Cardinals will face a lineup that is trying to win — a better proving ground than a series against a club coasting toward October.

Is this series still worth watching?

Yes, and not just for the reasons that apply to any Cubs-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium, which is already a sufficient answer for a large portion of the baseball-watching public.

For the Cardinals specifically, a four-game series against Chicago provides meaningful innings for pitchers who are auditioning for larger roles, at-bats for position players whose roster standing heading into next season is still being determined, and the kind of competitive environment that a game against a division rival provides even when the standings have been settled. Busch Stadium crowds for Cubs-Cardinals games have a way of making the atmosphere feel like October regardless of what the standings say, and that is not nothing when you are trying to evaluate how a young pitcher handles pressure or how a position player responds to a hostile crowd on the road.

The rivalry does the rest.

What we don't know yet

The starting pitcher information comes from MLB.com as reported probables, not lineup cards submitted before first pitch. Probable starters can change before game time for any number of reasons, and neither the Cardinals nor the Cubs have issued a lineup announcement in the material available here.

Beyond Monday's starter, the broader questions surrounding this Cardinals roster — which players are part of the long-term picture, how the front office evaluates the second half of a 77-85 season, what moves might come before the schedule closes out — remain outside the scope of what has been reported here.

What to watch

The most straightforward thing to track Monday night is how Liberatore performs against a Cubs lineup that is playing with stakes. At 77-85 and eliminated, the Cardinals have the luxury of letting their starters work through situations rather than pulling them at the first sign of trouble, which can produce more informative outings than a tight pennant race allows.

On the Chicago side, Peterson's performance against a Cardinals lineup at Busch Stadium is worth noting for Cubs watchers tracking the back end of their rotation heading into the final months of the season.

The series as a whole — four games, three different Cardinals starters, a division rival with something to play for — is the kind of extended sample that front offices use to make decisions that won't become public until the offseason. The standings are settled. The evaluation is not.