ARLINGTON, Texas _ With one eye on creatively using the bullpen to get a pitcher deeper into Friday's game, the Texas Rangers removed their starter by the second inning because everything was going according to plan
The Cardinals did the same because nothing was.
The Cardinals' pothole-strewn road to .500 stretched on Friday as the Rangers blistered Miles Mikolas for seven runs in the second inning and swaggered off to a 7-3 interleague victory at Globe Life Park. The Rangers hit two home runs and sent 13 batters to the plate in the second inning to quickly send the Cardinals toward their 12th loss in their past 15 games. The May descent already meant changes for the bullpen Friday and should inspire more through the coming days _ the meandering lineup or to the inconsistent rotation.
The Cardinals (23-22) haven't been this close to .500 since April 19.
Mikolas, a former Ranger back in Texas for the first time since reinventing himself as an All-Star, had allowed four runs before he got his first out of the second inning. Roughned Odor ragged him for a three-run homer, and three batters later leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo had a two-run homer that catapulted Texas toward a 7-0 lead before Mikolas was removed from the game and left reliever Giovanny Gallegos to sidestep a bases-loaded mess. The Rangers' seven runs in one inning was a season high for the team, and their eight hits are the most a Texas lineup had in a single sinning since April 2016.
It was just more of the same for the Cardinals on the road.
The Cardinals' lineup has averaged slightly less than five runs a game on the road _ which isn't shabby until it's revealed that the pitchers have allowed more than five earned runs on the road. Through the first 21 road games this season, the Cardinals' pitchers had an ERA that was the worst in the National League (5.10) outside of the worst team in the National League, Miami (5.28). With Mikolas' dud Friday, the rotation's ERA on the road mushroomed to 6.17 through 108 innings.
Through 21 games last season, the rotation had a 3.30 ERA.
The unreliable rotation _ which is less than a week removed from its first stretch of four consecutive quality starts _ has left the bullpen and the lineup to carry the team, even as the Cardinals won 20 of their first 30 games. The bullpen got an infusion of power Friday with the returns of Carlos Martinez and Ryan Helsley and expulsion for veterans Dominic Leone and Luke Gregerson. Cardinals manager Mike Shildt has acknowledged internal discussions about altering the look of the lineup. The access this weekend to the designated hitter at the American League ballpark gives Shildt the chance to start Jose Martinez and Harrison Bader, just as it could offer the nudge to rethink the top of the order. Through seven innings Friday, Matt Carpenter, Paul Goldschmidt, and Paul DeJong _ the top three batters in the Cardinals' lineup _ had combined to go 2 for 11.
Carpenter continues to see his average loiter around .200 even as he went 1 for 4 with a single Friday.
The Cardinals had scored four runs in their previous 25 innings entering the eighth inning Friday. Two of them came on solo homers in Atlanta. The other two, scored in the third inning Friday, came on an error and out.
Goldschmidt chopped into a misplayed grounder that brought home Bader for the Cardinals' first run, and Marcell Ozuna outran a double play to get an RBI with a groundout that gave the Cardinals their second run.
With their seven runs off Mikolas, the Rangers had 23 runs in an eight-inning span.
Into that buzz saw, Mikolas tossed pitches that strayed up, deliciously, in the zone. When given pitches in that location, even the swings are bigger in Texas. Joey Gallo started the second inning with a ground-rule double into right field. Mikolas hit the next batter. Logan Forsythe followed with a line-drive single, and Odor crushed the first pitch he saw for his sixth homer of the season. In the span of four batters, Texas had a 4-0 lead. It got worse. No. 9 hitter Jeff Mathis laced a single, and after a visit from pitching coach Mike Maddux, Mikolas served a 1-2 pitch that Choo that put in the right-center seats.
A double followed, and Gallo finally chased Mikolas from the game with an RBI single to score Willie Calhoun.
The Cardinals' bullpen pitched the final six innings without allowing a run. Tyler Webb retired all eight batters he faced and had five strikeouts. Although the subject of the most dramatic changes of the season, the bullpen has been, arguably, the stoutest facet of the roster for the Cardinals, while the lineup has proven fickle and the rotation porous.
Borrowing from Tampa Bay and Milwaukee and other teams that have used the "opener" concept, the Rangers started a reliever, Jose Leclerc. The scripted goal of Leclerc's appearance was to get through the top of the Cardinals' lineup so actual "starter" Adrian Sampson could go deeper into the game before seeing them for a third time. It's the same strategy the Rangers intend to use Saturday with Ariel Jurado set to enter the game in the second inning as the true starter. Former Cardinals starter Shelby Miller is also available in relief this weekend.
Leclerc retired the first three batters in the Cardinals' order, two of them by strikeout, and then dutifully took a seat in the dugout, his evening over.
With the head start, Sampson pitched 5 1/3 innings and allowed one earned run on seven hits. Carpenter, Goldschmidt & Co. didn't come up for a fourth time in the game _ what would have been a third time against Sampson _ until the seventh inning. The "opener" ploy worked to get Sampson that stepladder to later innings, and he responded by retiring nine of 10 batters in his second spin through the Cardinals' lineup.
Mikolas, meanwhile, didn't weather his first look at the Rangers' lineup.
He was the Cardinals' unplanned opener.
