ST. LOUIS — On the 41st anniversary of what would have been the Willie McGee Game if not for Ryne Sandberg, no Chicago Cub was coming to steal any of the thunder rolling for the Cardinals.

The Cardinals welcomed the Cubs to Busch Stadium for the first time this season by announcing their presence in the race with a show of force. The Cardinals flexed for four home runs – all of them from a left-handed batter, all of them two-run bolts – in an 8-2 romp Monday night. Lars Nootbaar welcomed the Cubs back with a two-run homer in the fourth inning, and in the next two innings Brendan Donovan, Alec Burleson, and Nolan Gorman would follow with two-run strikes of their own.

If that was the thunder, Matthew Liberatore was the lightning – speeding through seven efficient innings. Liberatore (5-6) got his first 12 outs on only 40 pitches and dashed off seven innings on 85 pitches while holding the Cubs to two runs on six hits.

In their first head-to-head crack at the National League Central’s first-place team, the Cardinals cut the Cubs’ lead down to 3 1/2 games with three games remaining in their visit. A crowd of 27.058 gathered in the heat to see the game for the smallest Cubs-Cardinals crowd in St. Louis in a non-pandemic season since 1995.

On June 23, 1984, at Wrigley Field, McGee hit for the cycle, but it was Sandberg late in the game who hit two game-tying home runs to lead the Cubs ultimately to an 11th-inning winning. There would be no such seesaw drama Monday night at Busch.

Between two doubles by Willson Contreras, Cardinals’ left-handed batters socked four home runs to turn what was a swift, tense game into a fireworks show rarely seen this season at the Cardinals’ downtown ballparks. Burleson noted Sunday that maybe with warmer temps, the ballpark would be less stifling to homers, and with a first-pitch temp of 94 degrees, the Cardinals had the heat. They would provide the power.

For only the second time this season, they hit as many as four homers.

What’s left for Cards? Slug.

Before and after being quieted by Cincinnati lefty Andrew Abbott on Sunday, the Cardinals talked about how their lineup was a group of “hit collectors.”

Burleson even told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch it wasn’t a lineup that would “slug a team to death, so to speak.”

Well, at least not for another day.

Among the league-leading teams when it came to batting average and stacking hits at home, the Cardinals unleashed their inner slugger on Cubs starter Ben Brown. The right-hander had allowed six home runs to left-handed batters in their previous 137 at-bats against him.

The Cardinals’ hit four in the span of seven at-bats.

Right-handed hitters primed the bases.

Left-handed Cardinals emptied them.

In the fourth inning, Willson Contreras split the left-center gap with a two-out double against his former team. With first base open, Brown fell behind Nootbaar 3-0 before having to choose to avoid the outfielder or pitch to him. He got a couple of strikes, and then on a 3-2 pitch tried to plunge a curveball past Nootbaar. Didn’t work.

Nootbaar tagged the third knuckle-curve he saw in the at-bat for a 396-foot home run and his 10th homer of the season. That swing produced the first two runs of the game – and hinting at what was to come. Two of the next four left-handed hitters to face Brown hit a home run, and the right-hander ahead of the lefty reached base.

Pedro Pages was hit by a pitch with one out in the fifth.

Donovan followed with a two-run homer two batters later.

Masyn Winn earned a walk.

The next batter, Burleson, crushed a two-run homer.

In two swings, Donovan and Burleson extended the lead to 6-1 with home runs that traveled 393 feet and into the right-field seats and 386 feet and into the right-field seats, respectively. Brown tried to slip a first-pitch, 90.3-mph changeup past Burleson only to see it soar. Brown’s fastball to Donovan left his fingertips at 96.6 mph, and it exited Donovan’s bat at 109.4 mph for his fifth homer of the season.

It was Gorman who finally chased Brown from the game.

Cue the refrain.

Nolan Arenado, a right-handed batter, led off the sixth with a single.

Gorman, the lefty who followed, drilled the ball 415 feet for his fifth homer of the season and the Cardinals fourth in the span of 12 batters.

Brisk beginnings

Blink (or wipe sweat from an eye) and the first inning was over.

Both starters needed only five pitches to collect their three outs in the rivalry’s opening inning of 2025. Liberatore collected two quick ground-balls, and then the inning ended with a fly-ball tracked down by Victor Scott II in center. Brown answered with another quick grounder, a strikeout and a fly out – all also on five pitches. Through their first turns against the lineup, both starers got nine outs from 10 batters, and the pace of the game suggested neither team wanted to linger despite the long way before their first game of the season.

Or, it could have been Monday’s thick heat plopped in the bowl of the ballpark.

Liberatore keeps pace going

While Brown tripped over powerlines, Liberatore maintained his efficiency.

The Cardinals’ young lefty got his 10th out of the game on his 31st pitch. Longtime Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright and 200-game winner used to try and keep the first digit of his pitch count the same as the inning he just finished. He wanted somewhere in the 60s when he finished six innings – or, at least, that was the goal. Liberatore finished four innings on 40 pitches.

The Cubs didn’t connect consistently against him until lacing three consecutive hits to begin the fifth inning and momentarily cleaving the Cardinals’ lead in half.

It took him 17 pitches that inning to get through the first five batters, and when pitching coach Dusty Blake came out for a brief conversation the bases were loaded with one out.

Liberatore finished the inning like he got to it.

Economically.

With the next pitch he threw after Blake’s visit, the lefty coaxed a double play from leadoff hitter and noted Cardinals-killer Ian Happ that ended the inning and the Cubs’ last threat to tie the game.

For the third time in 15 starts this season, Liberatore completed the seventh inning. Nine of his 21 outs came on the ground. Including his five strikeouts, 16 of his outs came without the ball leaving the infield.

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