ST. LOUIS — From third base, Willson Contreras raised four fingers toward the Cardinals’ dugout.

The meaning was clear.

The Athletics, having just narrowed the Cardinals’ lead down to two runs, walked Lars Nootbaar ahead of Contreras in the eighth inning Wednesday to get the matchup they preferred for right-hander Tyler Ferguson. That brought Contreras to the plate with two teammates on base, and five pitches later he stung the Athletics for a two-run triple. Contreras’ four-finger salute to his teammates was for the four fingers waved for an intentional walk.

It could also have been for his RBIs.

Contreras collected four RBIs on hits that Athletics’ outfielders had difficulties tracking and sent the Cardinals to a 5-1 victory at Busch Stadium. While still awaiting word from Major League Baseball about his appeal of a six-game suspension, Contreras collected his 75th, 76th, 77th, and 78th RBIs of the season to lift the Cardinals to series wing from the visiting Athletics, who are currently calling Sacramento home.

Matthew Liberatore (7-11) befuddled the A’s through his 5 1/3 innings. He struck out seven, and the Athletics had no solution for the lefty’s curveball.

Between Contreras’ two-RBI hits, Nolan Gorman had a solo homer that widened the lead and gave JoJo Romero the two-run game he inherited and then closed for his seventh save.

Liberatore spins through 5 1/3

With the final pitch of the first inning, Liberatore hinted at the evening he had ahead.

Kurtz, a favorite for the American League’s Rookie of the Year award, would hit his 28th home of the game in the eighth. But in the first, he got his first look at Liberatore — a left-handed pitcher facing a left-handed batter. Kurtz fell behind in the count, 1-2, on a mixture of sinkers and sliders. Left-handed batters like Kurtz almost exclusively saw Liberatore’s sinker, while he saved the four-seam to flash right-handed batters. Kurtz fouled off a slider to keep the count, 1-2.

And then Liberatore dropped the curveball.

Kurtz didn’t bite, letting the breaking ball droop for a ball.

But when a 94-mph fastball came from the same spot, Kurtz froze.

The called strike three on a fastball on the outer edge of the strike zone was the first of three caught-looking strikeouts Liberatore had in the first two innings.

He got ahead on Zack Gelof, 0-2, before putting him away with a 76.8-mph curveball. Gelof saw three curveballs in the at-bat and connected on none of them before taking one in the zone for the strikeout. To end the second inning, Liberatore showed left-handed batter Lawrence Butler three sliders, and Butler froze on the 2-2 pitch — an 86.2-mph slider.

By the end of the third inning, Liberatore had seven swings and misses, including two each on his four-seam fastball, slider and curve. He would finish his evening with seven strikeouts and 10 swings and misses. The Athletics took five swings at Liberatore curveball and missed on four of them.

The other curve was fouled off.

One of the areas of emphasis for the lefty in the final month of his first full year in the rotation is holding velocity from start to start and within starts. He saw a sip in speed on all of his pitches Wednesday night, and yet used the mix of them and different looks from them to still keep the Athletics off balance. An eager group that feasted on first pitches from Sonny Gray and had their eagerness turned against them by Miles Mikolas, saw just a variety of speeds from the lefty Liberatore.

The two called strikeouts in the second quieted an inning with a walk and a double.

In the fourth inning, All-Star Brent Rooker roped a single to left, and not much else happened. Liberatore unplugged the inning by striking out Gelof on a 76.2-mph curveball.

He then started the next inning by striking out Butler again with the curve.

Replay ends eventful 8th

A wobbly inning for the bullpen gave Gorman a chance to contribute on both sides of the ball.

Gorman extended the Cardinals’ lead with a solo homer in the bottom of the seventh inning, and in the top of the eighth inning the Athletics threatened to overtake it.

Held scoreless for the first six innings of the game, the Athletics got to see a third inning from right-handed reliever Kyle Leahy. Warming in the bullpen for either of the looming left-handed batters was lefty reliever Romero. The Cardinals opted not to go with Romero against Kurtz, presumably to then get Leahy the matchup against Rooker. That did not pay off immediately.

Kurtz tagged Leahy for a solo homer and the threat was on.

Rooker doubled and the first batter Romero faced — Tyler Soderstrom — singled to center to put runners at the corners and get the tying run on base. Romero struck out Gelof to regain a footing on the inning, and then he got the grounder that allowed Gorman his chance to pair his home run with a solid defensive play.

All it took was replay to make sure.

Darell Hernaiz pulled a grounder to Gorman at third that gave Rooker the chance to score — if Hernaiz outran the throw. It was close enough for the Athletics to challenge the out call on the field. It took minimal time for the officials in New York to confirm the call, assure Gorman’s assist on the play, reward Contreras’ stretch, and erase the run.

A’s stumble so Cards can run

Contreras’ liner to right appeared low enough to cause right fielder Rooker trouble as he had a chance to catch it for the final out of the inning.

When he stumbled, the Cardinals ran.

Rooker had an awkward jab-step toward the ball and then didn’t get his glove on the sinking liner — as if he was caught between running to the ball or pulling back to field it off the bounce. Whatever the result, Contreras' liner found grass and bobbled past Rooker. Masyn Winn scored easily from second, and Ivan Herrera wheeled around third to attempt to score from first. He beat the throw to give Contreras two RBIs and the Cardinals their early 2-0 lead.

That was the only lead Liberatore had at his back.

Cards reach 2 million in tix (again)

The Cardinals had a tickets-sold attendance Wednesday night of 17,516, up from Tuesday night’s 17,002, the smallest crowd for a full-capacity game in Busch Stadium III’s history.

The total from Wednesday night pushed them past 2 million tickets sold for the 2025 season and for the 40th consecutive year. That streak counts only full schedules and full capacity, so none of the labor stoppage-shortened years or pandemic years.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ streak of 49 consecutive is the only one longer.

The Cardinals have experienced a steep decline in ticket sales and attendance this season, dropping from being in the top 10 every previous year of Busch Stadium III’s existence to ranking 19th so far this season. The Cardinals’ average tickets-sold crowd of 28,007 is just ahead of Cincinnati’s 27,192.

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