With runs — and wins — hard to come by lately, St. Louis will turn to Miles Mikolas to keep the Pittsburgh Pirates’ offense at bay Saturday while the Cardinals’ hitters try to get it going against a pitcher they’ve dominated in the past.
The Cardinals, who scored 17 runs while walloping the visiting Pirates on Thursday to open the four-game series, managed only one run in losing 2-1 to Pittsburgh on Friday.
St. Louis has lost seven of nine games and has scored no more than one run in five of those defeats, keeping the pressure on the pitching to hold offenses down.
Mikolas (4-2, 4.02 ERA), with a new-found confidence in his curveball, is coming off his two best starts of the season, when he allowed only one run in 13 total innings during wins over the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies.
In those starts, he threw 59 curveballs, using it both as an out pitch and as a setup pitch. In his two starts before that, he threw a combined 30 curveballs.
“It’s been something I’ve been trying to hone in,” Mikolas said, adding that he was “able to tighten it up the last couple starts. Throwing it more often. Throwing it a little more aggressively. (I’m) not trying to spin it in there, but trying to rip it in there.”
Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said, “It’s a big pitch because it creates a lot of different eye levels. It’s got a lot of bite to it, too. It’s a tough pitch to get a good swing on.”
Against the Pirates in his career, Mikolas is 2-2 in eight games (six starts), with a 3.03 ERA.
Adam Frazier, who homered off the Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright on Friday night, is 8-for-18 with four doubles and two triples in his career against Mikolas.
Speaking of a confidence infusion, Pirates right-hander Jordan Lyles, who has a career ERA of 5.16 and is 33-53 overall even including his 2-1 start to this season, is making the most of the one-year contract he signed last December.
Lyles’ ERA is 2.20, and he’s coming off a season-long 6 2/3-inning outing against the Oakland Athletics in Pittsburgh on May 5. He allowed one run and five hits, getting a no-decision in the Pirates’ 5-3 win.
“He had every desire to be a starting pitcher, and our opportunity was real,” manager Clint Hurdle said of the nine-year veteran, who is with his fifth major league team. “We were very aggressive in letting him know that this is an opportunity that we wanted to try and put together for both of us. … He’s taken the ball and really moved it forward.”
Lyles has succeeded by mixing in changeups to set up his fastball and curveball. He has described his success in part as a matter of “getting after it and letting the ball do what it’s supposed to after it leaves my hand and not worrying about much other than that.”
The Cardinals pose a significant test, however, because they have had such great success against Lyles. He is 0-3 with a 4.91 ERA in his career against St. Louis, and the numbers get scarier at Busch Stadium: 0-2 with a 6.14 ERA.
Paul Goldschmidt, who is coming off back-to-back three-hit games to open the series, is 10-for-20 with three extra base hits and four walks against Lyles.