ST. LOUIS -- The public’s reaction to a gutting loss can often include second-guessing the key moments where pitching decisions carried influence over the outcome -- something Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol realizes is both inevitable and beyond his control.
But sometimes, the moments that are viewed as decision points through the reactionary lens of a fan base are, in reality, less actual choices and more the result of the only obvious path forward.
For example, Matthew Liberatore wasn't a candidate to stay in the game to grind for outs on Saturday despite the Cardinals' being in the midst of a stretch that sees 17 straight days with a scheduled game. Marmol rejected that premise on Sunday.
“This is my issue with the assumption -- you’re assuming 90 pitches gets him six more outs. It might get him two,” Marmol reasoned as an argument against the benefit to the team of a pitcher, for lack of a better phrase, being left in a game to ‘eat it.’
The Cardinal offense had also taken stud starter Bryan Woo to task -- the bats deserved the team's best from a pitching standpoint, and Libby didn't have it. So it wasn't really a situation where Liberatore would experience valuable growth from the notion of working through it.
Marmol described Sunday that Liberatore was more in survival mode than a place of being able to glean from an expanded outing as some sort of learning experience.
“I don't see the upside of allowing him to continue to pitch when he's obviously not having the day he wants,” Marmol said. “His body's not feeling like it's timed up the way he wants. He can't get anything to where he wants to get it… He's throwing a lot of strikes. It's just not where he wants them.”
Another such case of the illusion of a pitching decision where there really wasn't a decision to be made came involving closer Riley O'Brien later in Saturday's game.
Entering the action in the middle of the eighth inning, O’Brien surrendered a base hit on the first pitch he threw, allowing a pair of base runners inherited from JoJo Romero to score, tying the game, 9-9.
O’Brien navigated the remainder of the eighth inning and -- as a leverage reliever pitching on ample rest -- was the natural candidate to go back out there for the top of the ninth in a tie game.
For the first time in 2026, O’Brien was charged in that ninth inning with earned runs of his own. Prior to Saturday, the Cardinals held a perfect 13-0 record for games in which O’Brien was a participant -- due, in large part, to his contributions.
It’s why keeping O’Brien on the mound to ride it out until the bitter end despite a climbing pitch count was the only logical consideration for Marmol.
“[O’Brien] came in and before he said ‘Good morning,’ he said, ‘Thanks for letting me work through that. I want to be the one to give it up -- Good morning,’” Marmol relayed on the Saturday morning dialogue with his closer. “When a guy is [pitching] to the degree of what he's doing, and he gets himself in that situation -- he wants to be able to pitch through it.”
No, Marmol didn’t love the strain that those 39 pitches put on O’Brien -- none of it was ideal, nor the way the Cardinals drew it up. But just as it was inescapable that the club’s back end relief stalwarts wouldn’t go the whole season free of blemishes, it’s unavoidable throughout a baseball season that there will be moments that leave a manager stuck.
“The part that stings is, you're just stuck with Riley out there, right?” Marmol said. “Do I want him throwing 39 pitches? Nooo. If anybody's been careful with relievers, like -- sign me up, right?”
“It's more so, do you want to take him out with the bases loaded and bring in [Matt] Svanson? You're stuck. So, now it's his game. Then they keep fouling pitches off, and it's just like, gosh… One way or another, decide it here, you know? But you can't bring in Svanson and have him give up [O’Brien’s] runs in that situation. You can't. He wanted to be able to do that on his own.
“The contingency plan is to have a guy available one pitch after he gives up the runs, which is what we did. You make sure as soon as that run scores that he does not throw another pitch.”
It took about a month, but one of those uncomfortable baseball moments, indeed, played out for the back end of the Cardinals bullpen on Saturday.
Marmol and his staff prepared for it, navigated it, and will similarly attack the next such moment when it inevitably comes about.