PHOENIX — While tandem MVP candidates Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado tried to get their swings in sync, Miles Mikolas bought them all the time they needed – and more.
Staked to an early one-run lead by Goldschmidt’s first-inning homer, Mikolas carried a shutout through seven innings and allowed only one hit before the Cardinals’ offense widened the lead. It was the cornermen that delivered the knockout. Goldschmidt’s RBI ricochet off the pitch produced the Cardinals’ second run before Nolan Arenado’s third double broke the evening open on the way to a 5-1 victory against Arizona late Friday night at Chase Field.
Arenado finished with four hits, Goldschmidt had three hits, and both of the Cardinals’ infielders had two RBIs.
The Cardinals won their fifth consecutive game and extended their lead to four games ahead of second-place Milwaukee.
As the seventh inning started and the decisive rally began to brew, Mikolas (10-9) had thrown six shutout innings and allowed only three baserunners. He walked one, hit another, and gave up a double, and that runner didn’t advance. None of those batters did after reaching. Mikolas retired the first 11 Diamondbacks he faced in order, and he would get 21 outs from the first 24 Arizona batters of the game. Ten of the first 12 outs Mikolas got were recorded without the ball leaving the reach of an infielder.
The only run Arizona got against Mikolas scored on a groundout.
By then, the Cardinals had pounced for a four-running.
Arizona rookie lefty Tommy Henry impressed after allowing back-to-back extra-base hits in the first inning. He struck out seven in 5 1/3 innings went a stretch of the game where only Arenado seemed to have a read on him. The rookie allowed six hits and Arenado had three of them. The first full inning Henry wasn’t in the game was the inning the Cardinals put a rally together. By the time the seventh inning got around to Goldschmidt, the Cardinals had loaded the bases. He stung a grounder that caromed off reliever Kevin Ginkel and trickled far enough away to allow a run to score and Goldschmidt to reach on an infield single.
Arenado put the next ball in play into the gap for his third double in four swings and two RBIs to widen the Cardinals lead to 4-0.
Goldschmidt scored on a passed ball for a five-run lead.
Mikolas would finish with one run allowed on two hits through eight innings. He struck out four. Jordan Hicks closed the game by sidestepping a couple of baserunners for a scoreless ninth.
With two outs and a three-ball count to Goldschmidt offered at a pitch, but he took a step toward first base as if expecting a walk. Arizona catcher Carson Kelly, a key part of the package the Cardinals sent to the desert for Goldschmidt, requested an appeal on Goldschmidt’s check swing and was given a strike. That ran the count full and meant Goldschmidt would get another pitch.
He put it in the seats.
Goldschmidt’s 30th home run of the season – his seventh season with at least that many – gave the Cardinals an early lead. That was the only lead that Mikolas would get for his first six innings of work. Goldschmidt received a standing ovation as he came to the plate as a visitor for the third series since the trade to the Cardinals, and as he rounded the bases with his 102nd home run at Chase Field, Goldschmidt was serenaded with a chant of “MVP! MVP! MVP!”
With a line drive that threaded a defensive shift for a single, Yadier Molina tied St. Louis native and longtime Yankee catcher Yogi Berra with 2,150 career hits. In his next two at-bats Molina singled twice and passed the Hall of Famer to alone claim the fifth-most hits by a full-time catcher.
With 2,152 career hits, Molina would need 43 more to tie Jason Kendall for the fourth-most by an everyday catcher. Kendall has 2,195.
The all-time leader for players who mostly played catcher in their career and got a majority of those hits while shouldering that position’s workload is Ivan Rodriguez. The Hall of Famer and 13-time Gold Glove winner also had 2,844 hits.
As the Cardinals started to decode rookie Henry in the middle innings, they muddled two different rallies with outs on the bases.
In the fifth inning, Molina attempted to stretch for third base on Dylan Carlson’s single to right field and was thrown out as he arrived. Instead two runners on and the middle of the order on the horizon, the Cardinals had an inning come apart with Carlson stranded in scoring position. In the sixth inning, Goldschmidt made the run Molina didn’t – advancing from first to third on a base hit to right field. Goldschmidt raced for third when he saw that Arenado’s line drive to right was not caught and pinballed away from Arizona’s right fielder, Jake McCarthy.
When Arenado saw the same thing, he accelerated through first base and tried to reach second. McCarthy recovered in time to throw to second and shortstop Geraldo Perdomo made a leaping catch and tag to get Arenado at second.
The inning unwound from there with Goldschmidt stranded at third.
—Scoreless streak ends at 22 innings
Cardinals pitching coach calls throwing shutout innings “hanging donuts,” and the Cardinals nearly completed two dozen before Arizona turned a couple of outs in a run.
With Thursday’s shutout of Colorado sandwiched in between, the Cardinals had a run of 22 consecutive scoreless innings – or donuts – before the Diamondbacks inched across a run in the eighth inning Friday night. Arizona turned a leadoff double, a fly out, and then a groundout into the only run against right-hander Mikolas.
Mikolas’ outing made it nine consecutive games for the Cardinals that a starting pitcher has allowed two or fewer runs. That matches the streak by the rotation in September 2019.
