Mikolas continues nice stretch with five solid innings in win

MILWAUKEE -- Some 12 days ago, when Miles Mikolas was in the midst of a strong six-inning, one-run outing, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol peered down the dugout tunnel to the spot where the pitcher usually sits between innings to tell him he was done, only the veteran right-hander was nowhere to be found.

One out went by and then a second, and Marmol still couldn’t find Mikolas to inform him that the Cardinals were turning the game over to the bullpen in what proved to be a victory over the Athletics. When the manager curiously walked down the steps, he saw a playful Mikolas hiding behind the door with a big smile on his face.

A prideful pitcher who never wants to come out of games, Mikolas, 37, has had to come to grips with shorter outings in his seventh season with the Cardinals. Mikolas maximized his five innings of work on Sunday by limiting the playoff-bound Brewers to two runs on five hits in what became a Cardinals’ 3-2 victory before 42,269 fans at American Family Field.

“A couple of years ago, with [Adam] Wainwright still in the picture, he’s a guy of really high standards and he would put those standards on everyone that, ‘Hey, if you want to win games, you need to go seven innings,’” recalled Mikolas, who asked about him becoming more accustomed to shorter outings. “But the game has changed with the way teams use bullpens.”

The win allowed the Cardinals to end a five-game losing streak and keep their slim playoff hopes alive for another day. After dropping three straight games in Seattle and losing the first two in Milwaukee, the Cardinals won on Sunday to remain four games back of the Mets for the National League’s No. 3 Wild Card spot. A problem, however, is that the Giants, Reds and D-backs stand between the Cards and the Mets.

As they have done often on the road trip, the Cardinals grabbed an early lead but failed to build upon it and had to sweat out the later innings. They scored three times in the second inning off Brewers left-handed starter Jose Quintana thanks to a Pedro Pagés sacrifice fly, a José Fermín RBI single and a Nathan Church infield hit after he took the at-bat to 11 pitches. However, the Cards missed out on a golden opportunity to add on when Fermín was caught attempting to steal home after falling for a fake throw by Danny Jansen -- even though the Brewers' catcher had no intention of throwing to second when Lars Nootbaar walked, and a running Nathan Church advanced to second and then third.

“There’s a level of frustration there, and that’s not even [an error] that you can attribute to youthfulness because it was just a mistake,” Marmol said of Fermín’s gaffe. “We got lucky today because those are the things you can’t do against a good team. This is a really good [Brewers] team across the way. They have a good roster and they do a lot of things well, so you can’t miss things and let them off the hook. We got away with it, but you have to add another run or two runs in that inning.”

They got away with it because of the way Mikolas started out and the way JoJo Romero and Riley O’Brien finished the game. A night earlier, the Cardinals squandered leads of 6-1, 7-4 and 8-7 when the bullpen repeatedly ruptured and allowed the Brewers to pull out a 9-8 victory in 10 innings. On Sunday, Romero pitched a scoreless eighth for his 22nd hold of the season and O’Brien blanked Milwaukee in the ninth for his fourth save of the season.

“It’s important, and more for Riley than JoJo because JoJo has already had to experience [a rocky outing to decide a game],” Marmol said. “I want to see more of that in Riley. But that’s a big moment for him to come back the next day -- with a very quick turnaround -- and have a pretty clean inning that he did.”

Mikolas had a clean five innings of work, surrendering only solo homers to Caleb Durbin and Jansen. It was his fourth straight outing down the stretch where he surrendered two runs or less -- something that allowed him to even his career record with the Cards at 68-68 with a 4.14 ERA in 202 games (201 starts) with the birds on the bat across his chest.

Also, the strong closing run is significant to Mikolas considering that he wants to pitch beyond 2025, and he would love to have an eighth season of pitching in St. Louis.

“I love baseball, it’s a big part of my life, and I’m trying to finish strong to increase my chances of landing somewhere next year,” Mikolas said. “We’ll see what happens.”