PITTSBURGH _ What the Cardinals got from Miles Mikolas they may come to expect these days. What they saw from Marcell Ozuna is what they planned to get all along.
And what they revealed in the ninth was several weeks in the making.
That's when things got hairy.
Greg Holland's ongoing transition to closer for the team encountered more turbulence _ not entirely of his making. Three hits and two errors and suddenly Holland had turned a three-run lead into a 5-5 tie in the span of four hitters. The five-run lead the Cardinals once had came completely undone in the 11th inning when Starling Marte singled up the middle to score David Freese for a 6-5 victory.
Holland did not retire any of the batters he faced, though a routine grounder did get through for an error, and with a pinch-runner spinning around the bases, center fielder Tommy Pham mishandled a ball in center to give up the 90 feet that allowed the tying run to score.
Jordy Mercer's double to dead-center field led to Pham's play in center and Mercer scooted to third as the tying run scored.
Holland was lifted for a series of three relievers, each of whom got one of the necessary outs to keep the score tied despite Mercer being a ball in play away from a win. Dominic Leone, who had to hold the tie game with the potential winning/walk-off run at third base _ and no outs. Leone retired his assigned batter, then gave way to lefty Tyler Lyons to face left-handed-hitting outfielder Gregory Polanco.
Mikolas pitched seven excellent innings to continue his unbeaten return to the major leagues. Ozuna, who told Hall of Fame baseball writer Rick Hummel that his "show" was starting soon, had three hits and two RBIs.
The Cardinals constructed a 5-0 lead, all while Mikolas was in the game. Jedd Gyorko's second homer of the season _ and 101st of his career _ launched the Cardinals to a 1-0 lead in the third inning. Pham's RBI double and the first of Ozuna's two RBI singles pushed that lead to 3-0 before the inning ended. The Cardinals beefed up that lead to 4-0 without the help of a hit in the fourth inning. An error, a walk, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly put Bucs starter Steven Brandt further behind.
Ozuna was Brandt's penultimate batter in the fifth inning, and he got his second RBI single to push the lead to five runs.
By the time the Bucs started whittling into the Cardinals' lead, Mikolas was making his way through the lineup for a third time. He had five strikeouts by the time he faced his 18th batter, and the right-hander was doing what he has made a month out of: filling the zone with strikes. He continues to lead the league with the highest percentage of strikes zone thrown after throwing 72 of his 102 pitches Friday for strikes.
That led to four flawless innings. The Bucs didn't get the ball out of the infield in the first inning. Mikolas struck out two in the fifth inning, and he finished the seventh inning with two strikeouts and a fly out to right field.
The Bucs' two runs off Mikolas came in the sixth inning. Gregory Polanco landed a solo home run in the right-center seats for the Pirates' first run. Two singles and a sacrifice fly followed to cut the Cardinals' lead down to three runs and account for the two runs on six hits against Mikolas.
