Church's Three-Run Blast Flips the Script in Atlanta
Nathan Church hit a 391-foot home run to right in the fourth inning that scored Masyn Winn and Lars Nootbaar, swinging Atlanta's win probability from 65% to 29% in a single swing. St. Louis rode that momentum the rest of the way, beating Atlanta 5-3 on June 30.
Atlanta drew first blood in the third when Ozzie Albies hit a sacrifice fly to left, scoring Jorge Mateo to make it 1-0. The Cardinals answered immediately in the fourth — Nelson Velazquez launched a 444-foot shot to center to tie it, and then Church followed with his 391-foot blast to right, plating Winn and Nootbaar and turning a one-run deficit into a 4-1 Cardinals lead. That sequence, two home runs in the same inning, was the entire ballgame. Atlanta's win probability cratered from 65% to 29% on Church's swing, and the Braves never seriously threatened to recover. A sixth-inning sacrifice fly extended the lead to 5-1, and while Atlanta scratched across two more runs — Albies singled home Mateo in the seventh, and a pair of wild pitches in the eighth allowed another run to score — the Cardinals never let the margin get genuinely uncomfortable.
The story of the night on the mound was Matthew Liberatore, who looks like a pitcher operating at a completely different level than the man across the diamond. Liberatore went 5.0 innings, allowed just 1 hit and 1 earned run, walked 4, and struck out 9. The walk total is a concern worth watching, but nine strikeouts on one hit allowed is a performance that demands attention. Martin Perez, by contrast, was tagged for 5 hits and 4 earned runs across his own 5.0 innings, walking 3 and striking out just 1. The Cardinals made him pay for every mistake, and the contrast between the two starters was stark enough to define the game before the bullpens even got involved.
Velazquez finished 2-for-2 with the home run and an RBI, and Nootbaar went 2-for-4. Winn crossed the plate twice despite going 1-for-3. Church's line — 1-for-4, one home run, three RBI — understates how decisive his contribution was. Three runs on one swing, in the inning that broke the game open, is the kind of at-bat that wins road games. Atlanta's late-inning scramble made the final score look closer than the game actually felt, but St. Louis was in control from the moment Church's ball cleared the right-field wall.