Mikolas goes toe-to-toe with Skenes, but Cardinals lose a tight one that highlights limitations of the St. Louis bench

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - If I had a nickel for every time Miles Mikolas lost a no-hitter in the late innings at Busch Stadium on a Pirates outfielder knocking an extra-base hit to deep center field, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it’s happened twice.

Mikolas has to be about plumb tired of the trend. At least this time he was still more than an out away from glory?

“I don’t know if I’d rather lose it a little earlier to take the sting away or get a couple more no-hit innings under my belt,” Mikolas said. “Either way, that’s tough. But, a good outing, anyway.”

In his no-hit bid against Pittsburgh on June 14 ,2022, Cal Mitchell ended the dream with one out to go in a game the Cardinals still won. Making matters worse this time for Mikolas: his team lost the game, rendering his seven shutout innings for naught.

On Tuesday, the Cardinals fell to Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1, in a game that wasn’t necessarily billed as a marquee pitching matchup, but perhaps should have been given that Mikolas outperformed the rookie phenom.

His seven innings of one-hit baseball edged out Skenes’ 6.1 scoreless frames—although the 22-year-old posted a game-high eight strikeouts to continue his torrid pace.

“He was on tonight,” Cardinals manager Oli Marmol said of Mikolas. “They went toe-to-toe and it was a really good one. It really was.”

Mikolas struck out six and allowed only two base runners, a triple to Bryan Reynolds to break up the no-no in the seventh and a sixth-inning walk to Yasmani Grandal that pierced through the perfect game bid.

Both starters were perfect until Alec Burleson broke up the Skenes bid with a single in the bottom of the fourth.

Entering the evening, all eyes were trained on Skenes making his first-ever appearance against the Cardinals. Last year’s top overall draft pick, Skenes had set the league ablaze through five starts with his triple-digit heat and eye-popping ‘splinker’—a splitter-sinker combination that registers with mid-90s velocity. His 3.00 ERA and 38 strikeouts across 27 big-league innings entering Tuesday had all the attention.

With far less fanfare surrounding his season, Mikolas held the Pirates without a hit until Reynolds tripled to dead center in the seventh after Michael Siani’s valiant effort at the wall came up short.

Reynolds was erased on a sprawling Nolan Arenado double play, but Ryan Helsley endured an uncharacteristic ninth inning, loading the bases before allowing a pair of runs on an ill-fated fielder’s choice at home plate and a sacrifice fly.

Nolan Gorman’s solo shot in the bottom of the ninth off David Bednar was all the Cardinals could muster on the scoreboard, despite eight hits in the contest.

The Cardinals had a genuine scoring chance against the 22-year-old starter when Skenes uncorked a rare misfire with runners on first and third in the fifth. The wild pitch allowed Brendan Donovan to advance to second base, setting up the Cardinals’ best chance of the night. But with ducks on the pond, Pedro Pagés struck out before a Michael Siani grounder to first base that ended the threat.

Nolan Arenado played inspired for the Cardinals throughout the game, knocking a pair of base hits and pulling off the unassisted double play that ended the Pirates’ threat in the seventh.

He also took the extra bag as a base runner on three separate occasions as he put it all on the line in a losing effort.

“Obviously, we’ve just got to continue to grind out at-bats,” Arenado said. “Our pitchers are doing a great job. I know I need to be better. I don’t like to talk about what everyone else needs to do. I’ve got to find ways to come in and get better, have at-bats like I did today, play the defense I played today. I know if I can do a better job, I could help this team win ball games.

“But, collectively, yeah, just continue to grind out at-bats. We faced a good arm today. We battled. We just couldn’t get it done.

The Cardinals piled up eight hits on the night and reached base via walk and catcher’s interference during a fizzled ninth-inning attempt to rally. But their night ended with an 0-for-7 mark with runners in scoring position.

With their .212 batting average with RISP on the season, the Cardinals rank 28th in MLB.

Several late-and-close situations saw light-hitting position players take key at-bats without the substitution of a more robust option off the bench—and while there’s a case to be made that Dylan Carlson or Brandon Crawford could have or should have been deployed at various moments down the stretch, a quick glimpse at their respective Baseball Reference pages underlines Marmol’s hesitation.

When asked whether he would characterize that having a bench filled with players whose presence is designed for specified roles on the roster—Crawford as a strict backup to Masyn Winn defensively, as an example—is a factor that complicates his ability to deploy bench resources late in games, the Cardinals manager didn’t push back.

“It does. But you deal with what you’ve got,” Marmol conceded.

The Siani spot in the ninth inning was one that, ordinarily, would call for a more capable left-handed hitter off the bench to face the right-handed Bednar with the game on the line. Siani, with a .200 batting average and .502 OPS on the year, hit for himself and struck out to end the game.

Both Carlson and Crawford, who ended the night still on the bench, carried a sub-.500 OPS into that fateful moment.

“There is, because of the reasons you just described,” Oli conceded to the contention that because of how it’s composed, there are limited options for how he can deploy the bench late in games. “Yes. That’s correct.”

While injuries have contributed to the lean nature of the current bench makeup offensively, all teams deal with that throughout the year. The reality is that John Mozeliak constructed a roster with redundancies—typically, the backup catcher is the lone pure right-handed hitter of the bench on a given day, for example—and too many niche players in reserve roles.

As Nolan Arenado said after Tuesday’s game, Pirates starter Paul Skenes is “a stud.” But if Marmol wasn’t playing with the partial deck of cards he was dealt by the front office, the Cardinals may not have lost to the rookie phenom on Tuesday night.

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