{"id":546154,"date":"2026-03-19T06:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546154\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T06:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T06:01:11","slug":"cardinals-finalize-opening-day-rotation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/546154\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Finalize Opening Day Rotation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cardinals optioned\u00a0Richard Fitts<\/a> on Wednesday, seemingly finalizing their season-opening rotation. Fitts was trying to win a spot at the back end over Michael McGreevy<\/a> or\u00a0Andre Pallante<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The latter two righties seem set to round out a rotation led by\u00a0Matthew Liberatore<\/a>,\u00a0Dustin May<\/a> and\u00a0Kyle Leahy<\/a>. The Cardinals announced Wednesday that Liberatore will take the ball for the season opener opposite Drew Rasmussen<\/a> and the Rays. It\u2019ll be the 26-year-old southpaw\u2019s first Opening Day assignment.<\/p>\n

Fitts landed with St. Louis in the November trade that sent Sonny Gray<\/a> to Boston. The Cards acquired A-ball pitching prospect Brandon Clarke<\/a> as the headliner. Fitts was more of a secondary piece but is a controllable starter with good velocity and a pair of minor league options who should factor in over the course of the season.<\/p>\n

A 26-year-old righty, Fitts made 15 MLB appearances for the Red Sox between 2024-25. He managed a 3.97 earned run average but only struck out 17.5% of opponents while struggling with the home run ball. He took the ball three times this spring, giving up six runs on nine hits and three walks across 9 1\/3 frames. He struck out nine of 39 batters faced while working with an impressive 97 mph fastball on average.<\/p>\n

He\u2019ll head back to Triple-A, where he has a 4.13 ERA over 143 2\/3 innings. There\u2019s a good chance Fitts is the first man up if an injury or extended stretch of the schedule opens a rotation spot. He\u2019s the only depth starter on the 40-man roster who has any MLB experience.<\/p>\n

Liberatore and May were assured of rotation spots. The Cardinals intended to give Leahy a chance to start after he tossed 88 innings of 3.07 ERA ball in a long relief role last season. He has been a little homer-prone this spring but leads the team with 20 strikeouts over 17 2\/3 innings to solidify his starting job. It\u2019ll be his first rotation work since he was in Double-A four years ago.<\/p>\n

Pallante and McGreevy seemed on shakier ground at the start of camp. Pallante took 31 starts and logged 162 2\/3 innings a year ago, but he mustered only a 5.31 ERA. McGreevy allowed 4.42 earned runs per nine over 95 2\/3 innings. Both pitchers ranked near the bottom of the league in strikeout rate. They\u2019ve each managed a sub-3.00 ERA despite modest strikeout totals this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cardinals optioned\u00a0Richard Fitts on Wednesday, seemingly finalizing their season-opening rotation. Fitts was trying to win a spot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[212856,49,48,195715,34598,39960,462,51886,82],"class_list":["post-546154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-andre-pallante","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-kyle-leahy","tag-matthew-liberatore","tag-michael-mcgreevy","tag-mlb","tag-richard-fitts","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}