ST. LOUIS — One out and one pitch away from authoring history this city hasn’t seen in decades by allowing no hits, Miles Mikolas saw the immortality of his excellent evening sail just over the reach of center fielder Harrison Bader’s glove.
On Mikolas’ 129th and final pitch of his start, Pittsburgh Cal Mitchell, who entered the game late, drove a ball to straight away center. Bader, his back to Mikolas, dove in an attempt to catch the liner, but it landed just beyond and bounded over the wall for a ground-rule double. Mikolas had retired 17 consecutive Pirates before Mitchell connected for the hit that denied Busch Stadium III its first no-hitter and St. Louis its first, by any pitcher, since 1983.
Mikolas’ superb 8 2/3 innings and dramatic finish punctuated a doubleheader sweep of the Pirates. The Cardinals held fast to a 3-1 win in Game 1 and then romped for a 9-1 victory in Game 2. The Cardinals had a seven-run lead by the end of the second inning to clear the way for Mikolas to breeze through the Pirates.
Paul Goldschmidt homered three times, had six hits in the doubleheader, and reached base in all five of his plate appearances during the night game. That paced an offense that also featured Brendan Donovan’s first career four-hit game. Through the first two innings of the Cardinals’ Game 2 win, the top three spots in the Cardinals order had gone 6 for 6 with six runs scored, and Goldschmidt had five of the six RBIs.
The lone run Pittsburgh got against Mikolas came after a dropped fly ball to left field. Rookie Juan Yepez, replaced for defense in the seventh inning, circled under a high fly ball and had it glance off his glove to allow Bryan Reynolds to reach second. Two groundouts and Reynolds had scored.
On the scoreboard, that one run and the one error the Pirates’ committed on their line score bookended the zero in between, right there under the “H.”
They highlighted what they could not detract from it.
Mikolas had to pitch around two errors and a hit batter on his way to toward the precipice of history. He hit a batter in the second inning, and promptly sidestepped any trouble with a double play ball. In the third inning, an infield error and a walk put to runners on base. Another double play unplugged that inning on the Pirates. The Pirates did not get a ball out of the infield until the error in left, and Mikolas did not get (or really need) an out in the outfield until the seventh.
Before the ninth inning, the closest the Pirates came to upsetting Mikolas’ evening was in the seventh when another deep fly ball headed toward center field, carrying toward the batter’s eye. Bader tracked it down for an out, with his back to the center-field wall.
