Cardinals Fall 2-1, Disappoint Your Moms on Mother’s Day Eve

The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the Cardinals 2-1 Saturday afternoon following a nearly three hour rain delay before the game started. The loss surely left all of your moms dejected on Mother’s Day Eve, and dropped the Cardinals to 22-18 on the season. Hopefully both the Cardinals and your moms can recover in time for tomorrow’s game.

The Cardinals started promisingly, forcing Pirates starter Jordan Lyles to throw 10 pitches to leadoff hitter Matt Carpenter and 30 pitches overall in the first inning. However, they failed to score Paul Goldschmidt, who had walked earlier in the inning and reached second base, continuing the angsty runners left on base theme from Friday evening. Lyles had thrown 49 pitches through two innings, quite a contrast to the efficient work of Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas. The Cardinals starter required just 39 pitches to retire the Pirates through three innings. It continued an impressive run from Mikolas, who entered the game having yielded just one run in 13 innings over his last two outings.

Goldschmidt walked again to lead off the bottom of the third inning, and scored one pitch later when Paul DeJong’s drive to the right field fence was fumbled by Gregory Polanco. The near-homerun was ruled a double, and put the Redbirds up 1-0. Lyles escaped the jam without further damage.

Mikolas finally allowed his first hit with a single to Starling Marte to lead off the fourth inning. Polanco followed by reversing his mistake in right field, tripling home Marte to tie the game. In the next at-bat, Josh Bell drove him home with a single. Mikolas eventually closed out the inning, but it left the Pirates ahead 2-1 entering the bottom of the fourth. Following Bell’s RBI single, Mikolas retired the next 12 Bucs in order- the final 12 he faced. That streak was kept alive by a tremendous over the shoulder snag made by Kolten Wong in the seventh inning:

With Mikolas tossing seven complete innings on the heels of Adam Wainwright’s seven innings last night, it marked the first time Cardinal starters had thrown seven innings or more in back to back starts since last season. Since a spotty April 14th start against the Reds, Mikolas has thrown 33 innings, allowed just 23 hits, walked five, struck out 23, and sports a 2.45 ERA. In other words, he’s looked mostly like 2018 Lizard King for a month now.

To his credit, Lyles also calmed down, retiring ten Cardinals in a row from the end of the third through the sixth inning before giving way to reliever Richard Rodríguez. Rodríguez and his successor, Francisco Liriano, produced a scoreless seventh for the Pirates. John Gant relieved Mikolas in the eighth and tapdanced around a leadoff single by Elias Diaz to put up a zero.

Wong began the bottom of the eighth with a leadoff walk against reliever Kyle Crick, offering promise. Gant’s pinch-hitter Yairo Muñoz followed by... bunting for some damned reason. Compounding the decision, Muñoz popped up the bunt to Bell at first base. After Matt Carpenter struck out, Goldschmidt floated a two-out single to the opposite field, advancing Wong to third base. DeJong followed and Crick threw a wild pitch on ball four, but the ricochet off the Busch brick behind the plate wasn’t pronounced enough for Wong to score. Still, it set the stage for Marcell Ozuna with two outs and the bases loaded. The rally fizzled when Ozuna grounded out to Bell.

A clean shaven Andrew Miller came on in the top of the 9th and looked as impressive as he has all season. He struck out two Pirates, retired the side on just ten pitches, and sent the game to the bottom of the ninth with Pittsburgh clinging to a 2-1 lead. Closer Felipe Vázquez entered and struck out José Martínez. He then induced a lineout from Yadier Molina and a groundout by Harrison Bader to shut the door.

Despite picking up a hard luck loss, Miles Mikolas earned Captain Lawrence Brewing Cookie O’Puss Player of the Game honors. He was brilliant other than three at-bats in the fourth inning. The fourth inning hits were the only he would allow in the game. The two teams will wrap up their four game series tomorrow with a 1:15 Mother’s Day tilt.

Notes:

• Scoring based on the author’s beverage:
  -Captain Lawrence Cookie O’Puss: 0-0
  -Bell’s Official: 2-1, Pirates
  -Boulevard Chocolate Ale: 0-0
  -Dogfish Head Super Eight: 0-0
  -No beer: 0-0
  Apparently, the Two Roads/Lawson’s Typecast and Belhaven Scottish Ale I had earlier in the day caused a three-hour rain delay, to say nothing of the coffee laced with moonshine I had for breakfast. In case you can’t tell, I’m a junkie for hazies, sweet bomb stouts, and marathon drinking on lazy weekend days. And if you can ever get ahold of anything made by Lawson’s (especially their Sip of Sunshine), do it.
• Pirates outfielder Bryan Reynolds is, at best, the second most interesting person whose name ends in “ryan reynolds”.
• Best Movie Moms (mostly from horror movies): Sarah Connor, the Terminator series; Mrs. Bates, Psycho; Barbara, Shaun of the Dead; the poor lady in Good Night, Mommy; Tommy Devito’s mom, Goodfellas, who obviously cares deeply about the semantics of deer feet... or the paw... or whaddya call it, the hoof?; Bambi’s mom, Bambi; Ellen Griswold, the Vacation series; Ellen Ripley, Aliens; Annie Graham, Hereditary; Carrie’s mom, Carrie
• To paraphrase Mike Shannon, tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so a big ‘Happy Birthday’ to all you mothers out there!
• Also, Let’s Go Blues