CHICAGO — Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages had to take the blame for the tears this time around.
After his first major league home run on Friday, Pages couldn’t help but cry after he saw tears of joy running down the face of his father, Edgar, after the game. On Sunday, the tears started with son instead of the father.
The rookie Cardinals catcher capped Father’s Day weekend and the three-game series against the rival Chicago Cubs with a two-run homer that proved the difference in a series-clinching 2-1 win on Sunday afternoon. Afterward, he and his father shared a tearful embrace for the second time in three days at Wrigley Field.
“Being able to do it in front of my father ... this weekend meant the world to me,†Pages said. “We’ve been through a lot together. To do it in front of him, we had a moment on the field when we both started crying.
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“I started crying first this time. It was my fault. It just means a lot. A lot of happy thoughts, happy emotions going through my head right now. So I’ve just got to enjoy it.â€
Pages homered in his first at-bat in the series finale. After veteran shortstop Brandon Crawford lined a one-out double to right-center field in the second inning, Pages smacked an 0-2 sweeper from Cubs starter Jameson Taillon into the left-center field stands.
Crawford left the game in the eighth inning because of leg cramping, but the Cardinals were optimistic it wouldn’t be a lingering issue.
The Cardinals added Pages, a native of Venezuela who moved to the United States at age 4 when his family sought asylum, to their 40-man roster in November.
Pages had a pair of brief stints with the major-league club, from April 4 to April 11 and April 21-May 5. After starting catcher Willson Contreras suffered a broke forearm last month, Pages returned to the majors as the primary backup to fellow rookie Ivan Herrera.
Pages had just 18 plate appearances in May, but he earned more playing time recently because of his defensive performance.
On Sunday, Pages started at catcher for the sixth time in the team’s past seven games, including all three contests in the series against the Cubs. He’d had nearly as many plate appearance (17) in the previous six games entering Sunday as he had the previous month in the majors.
“You’ve got to take it the positive way and be like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to keep working,’†Pages said. “At the beginning, I wasn’t. I admit it. I wasn’t doing any of that. I was just taking the negative of like, ‘I want to play. I want to play.’ I’ve just got to stay ready. I learned that. It’s just staying ready and staying prepared.â€
The home run he hit off Taillon gave the Cardinals (35-35) a 2-0 lead, and it ultimately accounted for all of the club’s scoring on a day they eked out a one-run win.
“It’s special,†Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley said of Pages’ pivotal performance in front of his father. “It’s almost like a fairy tale. As a kid, you grow up dreaming of these types of moments, especially in a game like this against a division rival. A day game in Wrigley, sold-out crowd. You couldn’t write a better script.â€
Pages joined current Cardinals outfielder Lars Nootbaar and former Cardinals Mark McGwire and Gary Gaetti as the only players in team history with two home runs in their first three games at Wrigley Field.
“This environment is a really good one if you embrace competition and the overall feel of it,†Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Pages’ ability to make an impact after a long stretch of limited playing time. “He’s done exactly that. He’s calm behind the plate. He’s super-prepared. He had a really good series.â€
Of course, the trick then became how to make those two runs stand up over the final eight innings.
Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas (5-6) held the Cubs to four hits and one run in 6â…“ innings. He struck out five on his way to his fourth consecutive quality start. Since 2018, Mikolas has held the Cubs to three runs or fewer in 16 of his 18 starts.
The Cubs (34-38) got three of their four hits against Mikolas in the fourth inning. He didn’t allow a hit the first time through the Cubs batting order. He retired the first nine batters, and he registered three strikeouts in the first three innings.
Mike Tauchman led off the fourth with a single for the first hit of the day against Mikolas before Seiya Suzuki’s seeing-eye single slipped through the infield and into left field to put two men on with two outs. Then a slow roller off the bat of Ian Happ squibbed just past Mikolas for an infield single and loaded the bases.
Nico Hoerner then hit a chopper to Crawford at shortstop and Crawford threw to Nolan Gorman covering second base for the final out of the inning. The Cubs challenged the bang-bang play, but the call was upheld upon replay review.
Mikolas retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth innings. He leaned on his sinker throughout his outing, including on the pitch that Hoerner hammered into the turf to end the fourth-inning threat.
“It gives me a pitch that I feel like I can throw in just about any count for a strike, get a ground ball,†Mikolas said. “I’m confident attacking guys with it. It’s fun to throw. It’s moving a lot right now, so it’s fun for me to see it moving around out there.â€
Mikolas had thrown 85 pitches when he took the mound in the seventh inning. Suzuki hit a fly ball to right-center field for the first out of the inning, but then Happ registered the only extra-base hit of the day against Mikolas. Happ’s double into the right field corner marked the end of Mikolas’ outing.
Pitcher Ryan Fernandez entered with a runner on second and one out. He got Hoerner to hit a harmless fly ball to right field for the second out of the frame, but left-handed-hitting Michael Busch swatted an RBI single to left field to cut the Cardinals’ lead in half.
Fernandez then walked Dansby Swanson to put the go-ahead run on base with catcher Miguel Amaya coming to the plate. Amaya hit a grounder to shortstop to end the inning, and the Cardinals held on to a 2-1 advantage.
Andrew Kittredge pitched a scoreless eighth inning. He worked around a leadoff walk and stranded the tying run on third base.
Helsley pitched around a leadoff walk and a two-out walk in the ninth, and he registered his MLB-best 24th save of the season. Helsley retired pinch-hitter Patrick Wisdom on a fly ball to the warning track in left field to end the game.
The Cardinals have now won four of their past six games and taken back-to-back series against NL Central foes the Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates to get back to a .500 record.
There’s some optimism that Contreras could return soon, and the club’s projected starting center fielder Tommy Edman is getting closer to going on a minor-league rehab assignment.
“I’m really pretty stoked for our group to be where we’re at based on some of the guys we’re missing and some of the things that we’ve had to do in order to get here,†Marmol said. “Even guys working through some of their struggles and continuing to grind and not give in to anything. It’s a long season, and we’re going to be just fine.â€