Despite a solid outing from starting pitcher Miles Mikolas, the St. Louis Cardinals lost again on Tuesday night — and the veteran partly blames himself for the team's continued struggles.

“Guys like [Paul Goldschmidt] and myself — older guys who are team leaders — I feel like part of this is my fault,” Mikolas said after the team's 4-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays, per MLB.com.

“I didn't pitch to my abilities early in the season. Bad breaks? Maybe. But did I pitch as well as I could have? I didn't have a good early part of the season, and you're counting on a guy to anchor the rotation. I'm eating up innings, but not always in a great way. There's some season left and we're still in it mathematically, so I hear. But we've got to give it everything we've got the rest of the season.”

Admittedly, the Cards are in a brutal spot, sitting in the basement of the NL Central with an abysmal 49-65 record.

Mikolas pitched well at Tropicana Field on this occasion, hurling 6 1/3 innings of scoreless ball before allowing a solo home run to Isaac Paredes. He was still able to get through the seventh inning, taking a 1-1 game into the eighth. But then things fell apart again.

“On Tuesday, Mikolas saw a slicing liner hit by Josh Lowe to open the eighth inning narrowly miss Dylan Carlson's glove in left-center field for a triple. Four singles later — on three ground balls and one line drive off reliever Andre Pallante — and the Cardinals were on their way to another frustrating loss,” wrote MLB.com's John Denton.

The Cardinals were able to muster just two runs in the contest, one on a solo home run from Nolan Arenado in the second inning and another in the ninth from Willson Contreras.

“You're at the top of the mountain and then the bottom of the valley, and it's Heartbreak 101,” Mikolas explained after the game.

“You see [ground balls] and you think you've got it, and then you don't. A fly ball goes up and it ends up in that Bermuda Triangle. This game will make you super happy and disappoint you on a regular basis.”

At this point, Miles Mikolas and the Cardinals aren't doing much more than waiting for the season to be over.