HOUSTON — Six innings and fewer than 65 pitches into his finest game of the season, Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas had only one frame of reference for what happened next when he was lifted from the game with so much more to give.
“Like spring training,†he joked. “Do I go to the bullpen and throw a few more pitches?â€
A brawny, mustachioed right-hander with a throwback streak who has long said one measure of his season is pitching 200 innings, Mikolas is experiencing something slightly different this season, something different in use, if not mindset. Something exactly like Wednesday as the Cardinals took the gem Mikolas carved through six innings and instead of sticking with him used the big three from the bullpen to polish it into a win.
JoJo Romero, Andrew Kittredge and Ryan Helsley provided three scoreless, hitless innings to secure a 4-2 victory against the Astros at Minute Maid Park. Helsley collected his 20th save of the season — a new career high with more than 100 games still to play.
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The victory avoided a sweep by Houston and sent the Cardinals home after going 4-5 on a three-city road trip, their longest of the season. Mikolas (4-6) didn’t get a complete game. Didn’t even complete the seventh for the first time this season.
But he didn’t only get a win, either.
“We’ve been playing some tight games, (and) the bullpen has been good,†said Mikolas, the team’s leader with seven quality starts. “I’ve had bad innings here and there and just the idea of just — it’s a nice game for me. Six innings. It’s a quality start. It is what it is. It’s a good one to keep building off of without going out there for the seventh and something goes wrong. Now all of sudden the game ends and I’m upset with myself. To keep having a positive experience, I think there is value in that.â€
The Cardinals cobbled together some early runs to assure Mikolas left with the lead. Michael Siani, the Cardinals’ No. 9 hitter and center fielder, had a sacrifice fly to score the game’s first run, and his sacrifice bunt in the fifth spurred a two-run inning. He’s the first outfielder in 36 years with a sacrifice fly and a sacrifice bunt in the same game for the Cardinals, and shortly after he had both, the Cardinals had a 3-0 lead.
Nolan Arenado’s solo homer in the sixth off Astros starter Ronel Blanco (5-2) widened the lead to where the game finished. The Cardinals third baseman returns home from the trip having doubled his season total of home runs to six.
“We needed it,†manager Oliver Marmol said. “After what happened the first game — being able to take one before we get out of here was important.â€
The Cardinals took and misplaced leads in each of the first two games of their first visit to Houston since 2016. Mikolas prevented that from happening a third time. Once the Cardinals had the lead, the closest the tying run ever got against Mikolas was first base. That was only for one hitter. The two runs he allowed were on two swings that lifted pitches for back-to-back home runs in the fifth. He retired five of the next six batters he faced, and by the end of the fifth, he’d thrown only 56 pitches. He got his final three outs on six pitches.
Each of them from a looser, “more free†delivery he’s adopted recently.
It all started with a game of a catch that felt less tense than his starts.
“As soon as you start to struggle, sometimes you tell yourself, ‘I’m going to force myself out of this, out of this trouble,’†Mikolas said. “You can over-try. Hitters go, ‘Oh, I’m in a slump, and I’m going to go up there and just grab that bat and just swing it as hard as I can.’ It might work. It could work as a one-off if you’re out there and you want to muscle-up for a pitch or two. You can’t do that for a whole game. You’re going to miss more often than not if you’re out there overthrowing and trying to over-spin or try to make pitches do what they don’t do.
“Don’t try to throw as hard and the ball comes out with a little bit more life, a little bit more movement.â€
Mikolas retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, and when an Astro broke that streak with an infield single, the Cardinals right-hander got an inning-ending double play. Marmol described Mikolas as “in control of every at-bat (with) a purpose behind everything he’s throwing.â€
Mikolas had the pace and vintage look of carrying the Cardinals deep into the game.
Except the big three had a fresh look, and the score had a narrow look.
Marmol chose not to have Mikolas face the same hitters with homers off of him for a third time. Pitch count was beside the point. Matchups mattered.
“The hitter does not care if you’re at 62 or 82,†Marmol said. “We have a ’pen built to be able to do what we did. Leave it on a positive note being able to come out of that game after six.â€
Throughout Major League Baseball, one of the most significant shifts of recent years is the short-burst starter, the Cy Young Award winner who will go for the gusto for five innings, accumulate strikeouts and zeroes, and then leave the rest for the bullpen to sort out. They specialize in whiffs, high pitch counts, high strikeout rates and fewer bulk innings. The Cardinals and Mikolas have worked to introduce more swings and misses to his game, but these shorter, brisker snacks are not a sign of a shift in their approach with him or his innings-gobbling approach within games.
Mikolas has pitched into the seventh inning only once this season. Five times in his past seven starts, he’s pitched six innings precisely. In his past three starts, he’s left after six despite a pitch count of 96 or fewer and a quality start each time.
The Cardinals are not trying to see if less is more from their long-haul logger.
“He’s a pitch-maker,†Marmol said. “There is no conversation about, ‘You’re going shorter there for a change of your approach.’â€
If the Cardinals scored another run in sixth to hold a three-run lead, Mikolas would have pitched the seventh. If the “monster we have out there†— Mikolas’ term — wasn’t rested or available from the bullpen, Mikolas would have pitched the seventh. If they weren’t facing the possibility of a sweep, he might have pitched the seventh. There will be those games ahead, Marmol said, when he’ll get the eighth, too.
And they’ll need it.
Mikolas likened the various style of starters to track and field in the Olympics. He started listing off the different lengths of races — the mile, the 400-meter, the 800-meter — and how there are some pitchers who are best sprinting through five innings and hoisting zeroes and there are starters who better going the distance. He was asked which race is his.
“I ran the mile in middle school,†Mikolas said. “I’m not the best sprinter. But once I get into my stride, I cruise pretty good.â€