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Turns out a second three-run deficit in extra innings was too much to overcome.

The Los Angeles Angels mustered three runs with two outs in the 11th inning Tuesday night to force the Cardinals to once again try to match or surpass them. Up for the challenge in the bottom of the 10th, the Cardinals did not stage an encore.

The Cardinals got the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the 11th but could not catch the Angels for a third time in the final hour of a 9-7 loss at Busch Stadium.

Credit Yoan Moncada with the two-run double in the 11th inning off Chris Roycroft that brought in the deciding runs.

Note the Cardinals’ 4-for-16 with runners in scoring position.

After committing the error that allowed the Cardinals to force extra innings, Angels infielder Nolan Schanuel legged out the triple that the Cardinals had to chase. Schanuel’s two-run triple in the 10th inning and subsequent trot home gave LA its 6-3 lead going into the 10th. The same Cardinals’ reliever who lost a lead in the seventh Monday night, Ryan Fernandez allowed the three runs in the top of the 10th.

His teammates erased the deficit – and nearly made him the winner.

Luken Baker’s two-run double with an out in the 10th put the tying rally in motion. Nolan Arenado tied the game with a single toward right field, and that move the potential winning run to third with one out. The Cardinals failed to budge him from there.

A lead the Angels took on Mike Trout’s two-run double in the third inning took until the eighth for the Cardinals to erase – with a little help. Lars Nootbaar led off the inning with a single and that dutifully advanced to third on back-to-back groundouts. Arenado chipped another grounder, but Angels’ first baseman Schanuel misfired on the throw. The error allowed Nootbaar to score and knot the game.

For the second time in as many nights, Ryan Helsley pitched the top of the ninth with a 3-3 score to protect. For the second time in as many nights, the Cardinals treated a crowd of around 21,000 tickets sold to extra innings.

With a double and his first homer of the season, Jordan Walker delivered the Cardinals’ first two runs in a game defined by pitchers at opposite ends of their careers. Kyle Hendricks continued his same-old, same-old mastery of the Cardinals, while lefty Matthew Liberatore showed something new in his new role as part of the Cardinals’ rotation.

A relief how Liberatore finished start

Liberatore asserted his presence in the rotation with authority in the first inning.

He breezed through three batters on 14 pitches, 13 of which were strikes. The Angel in the outfield who would dent Liberatore’s line with two runs later, Trout, struck out on four pitches to end the first inning. Liberatore got ahead with a 95.1-mph fastball and stayed ahead with a 95-mph sinker. Trout fouled off a 96.4-mph sinker – and that got caught fishing for an 87.2-mph slider.

In short bursts out of the bullpen, Liberatore made the most of such velocity, and when it started to drift on him in the third inning, the Angels capitalized.

That doesn’t cause the Cardinals’ thoughts to wander back to Liberatore in relief.

Manager Oliver Marmol stressed the commitment hours earlier in his office.

“You want to allow that some time to see if it plays as a starter,” he said. “This isn’t you’ve got three starts, show us what you’ve got. That’s not what we’re doing.”

And with that time Tuesday, Liberatore found his footing again. A double play helped him out of the fifth, and he got eight outs from the final seven batters he faced. Rocky in the third, Liberatore finished the sixth for the Cardinals’ second quality start of the season. He struck out four and did not walk a batter.

Hendricks maintains hex on Cardinals

Dating back to his time with the Cubs that included one evening where he became one of the few visiting players to flirt with a no-hitter in St. Louis, Hendricks has flummoxed the Cardinals. That apparently transferred when he traded in his ivy for a halo.

Hendricks started Tuesday evening with the equivalent of a season against the Cardinals – and what a season. The speed-changing specialist was 14-4 with a 2.51 ERA in 179 innings and 28 appearances (27 starts) against the Cardinals. He was even better at Busch, where he went 7-2 against the Cardinals in his first 13 starts in their ballpark. The only player with a lower career ERA at Busch and at least 80 innings there was Hendricks’ former Cubs teammate, former Angel ace, and former Cardinals starter John Lackey. Lackey’s 2.08 edges Hendricks’ 2.26.

Tuesday did nothing to get him closer to Lackey.

But it wasn’t like the Cardinals were any closer to him.

Outside of Walker’s two RBIs, Hendricks did not allow a run in his six innings. He scattered seven hits, but minimized the trouble they caused with four strikeouts. Hendricks got two of those strikeouts in the sixth inning from back-to-back batters, and the right-hander did not throw a pitch faster than 88 mph to either of them. Hendricks yo-yo’d with his off-speed pitches all night, downshifting from a four-seam fastball that averaged 86.8 mph to a curveball that dropped all the way to 71.8 mph.

The Cardinals stacked their left-handed batters against Hendricks – even tried to give his former catcher Willson Contreras the night off – and did not have much to show for it. Four of the seven hits off Hendricks were from lefties. Only one went for extra bases. None drove in a run.

Lead unravels in 5 pitches

In the span of five pitches the Angels warped Liberatore’s otherwise quality start. During the third inning – and the lineup’s second look at the lefty – the Angels singled twice and doubled twice to produce all three of their runs against Liberatore.

He retired the first eight batters he faced, and by the time the ninth batter came up, Liberatore had collected more outs (eight) than he had thrown balls (seven).

What happened next, happened fast.

No. 9 hitter Tim Anderson singled, and four pitches later Trout stood at second base with a two-run double and the lead. Liberatore experienced a dip in velocity during that second turn through the lineup, and the Angels capitalized. Luis Rengifo drilled an RBI double to tie the game, and Trout followed with a hard, sharp grounder threaded down the third base line to get the lead and widen it.

Walker strikes on 9th pitch

While so much of the late-spring attention was on the opening of a “runway” for Liberatore at starter and limits placed on the “runway” for Nolan Gorman in the lineup, the player who inspired so much of the “runway” talk to begin with has been taking his at-bats, as planned.

Walker, a starter in right field for four of the Cardinals’ first five games, brought a .444 average into Tuesday night’s game – and only added to it through five innings.

Walker drove home Gorman in the second inning with a grounder that skipped past the second baseman for a 1-0 lead. In the fourth, he had one of his best at-bats yet in the majors. The third-year outfielder worked Hendricks through nine pitches. He fouled off a 1-2 changeup, a 2-2 fastball, and two full-count sinkers. Walker also ignored two changeups that drifted low and out of the zone.

When Hendricks went back to the fastball for the ninth pitch, Walker greeted it in front of the plate and crushed it to straight-away center field.

Walker’s first homer of the season traveled 419 feet.

The solo homer cleaved the Angels’ lead down to a run, 3-2.