Miles Mikolas is pitching through a brutal season for the St. Louis Cardinals and it seems his patience is running thin — both with himself and his team's squandered opportunities.
The Cardinals enter play on Monday with a 57-55 record, putting them 5.5 games behind the Brewers in the National League Central and 3 games out of a Wild Card berth. FanGraphs puts the Cardinals' playoff chances at 20.5%. With almost two months left in the season, those odds are small but not impossible.
St. Louis just needs to win games, and a series in which they lost three out of four to the sub-.500 Cubs is only making things more difficult.
“You know, if we’re going to get there [to the playoffs], we’re going to have to beat those teams and we’ve got to beat them now,” Mikolas said after the Cardinals' 6-2 loss to Chicago on Sunday. “We’ve got to show other teams and show ourselves that we’re a playoff team. We’ve got to come out and really give these teams a run for their money.”
Mikolas lasted just four innings on Sunday, allowing four runs on eight hits and striking out three. He's on track for his next start to be Friday in Kansas City against a Royals team that appears bound for the postseason.
“If we’re going to turn it on, we’ve got to turn it on now,” Mikolas added. “I know we’ve got a good stretch coming up against winning ball clubs — teams that if we make the playoffs we’re probably going to see like the Dodgers and Padres — so now is the time to really turn it on.”
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol wasn't quite as blunt, pointing to the quality arms his team faced against the Cubs.
“We faced four [Cubs starters] who have under a 4.00 ERA … and [Chicago’s Justin] Steele has done an incredible job,” he said. “You go down that list, and they have some pretty good arms. That first game came down to the last inning, and they were able to string together some at-bats versus our closer. But, today, we just didn’t string together many quality at-bats against their lefty.”
Miles Mikolas is searching for consistency
Even if his numbers are mediocre, Mikolas has been a reliable arm for the Cardinals over the last two seasons. He led the National League in games started last year (35) and is doing the same so far this year (23).
2024 in particular, however, has featured more bad starts for Mikolas than good. He finds himself saddled to a 5.12 ERA with opponents hitting .280 off of him. That's come as a product of not being able to string quality outings together. Prior to Sunday, he had thrown back-to-back quality starts. Before that, however, he gave up four home runs in 5.1 innings, again to the Cubs.
That game came off of two more quality starts, with a nine-run disaster against the Reds immediately before.
The Cardinals' rotation overall has been inconsistent, with Sonny Gray the only starter with an ERA under 4.00. As a team, they've given up more runs than any team in their division.
Now's the time to start turning things around.
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