Mitchell spoils Mikolas' no-hit bid with 2-out double in 9th

ST. LOUIS -- The ball lingered in the air. Harrison Bader would have a chance. Every soul held their respective breaths. Miles Mikolas’ date with destiny lay in the glove, the speed, of the Cardinals’ defensive savant with limitless range.

Bader had the ball tracked. He has made these plays before. Here was another. He loaded. He leapt. He extended.

Dirt. Then, grass.

Down to their final strike, the Pirates’ Cal Mitchell played spoiler. In his lone plate appearance of the evening, Mitchell broke up Mikolas’s no-hit bid with a ground-rule double on a fly ball that barely missed Bader’s glove, helping ease the sting of a day with two losses, including a 9-1 defeat in Game 2 of a split doubleheader on Tuesday. The Bucs fell, 3-1, in the matinee.

Similar to a conductor, Mitchell’s swing spawned groans that reverberated throughout Busch Stadium.

“I knew I got it pretty well,” said Mitchell, ranked by MLB Pipeline as the Pirates' No. 24 prospect. “He had been making plays at the wall all day. I knew I hit it and I started running.”

When Mitchell, who entered in the seventh to get Bryan Reynolds a breather, dug into the box, Busch Stadium was ready to erupt. Everyone knew the stakes. Mitchell knew the stakes. He heard the crowd, felt the vibrations. A couple players coached him up as he prepared to head on deck, preparing him for the moment. When Tucupita Marcano flew out, the weight fell on Mitchell’s shoulders.

Mitchell spat on the first two pitches he saw, a pair of the big curveballs that made Mikolas so effective. He took a fastball for the first strike, then swung through a curveball. After slapping a foul ball, he took a few steps to compose himself. He’d seen the curveball. He’d seen the fastball. He had an idea of how the pitches moved. Mikolas went with another curveball to finish the deal. Mitchell didn’t miss, and not even the reigning Gold Glove outfielder could help Mikolas make history.

"I think every ball that's hit in the outfield, Harrison Bader's going to catch,” manager Derek Shelton said. “He and [Tyler O’Neill] have played so well against us over the last couple years, and they're Gold Glove caliber outfielders. Until the ball lands in the outfield here, I expect Bader to catch the ball."

Before Mitchell’s double, there were plenty of potential hits that the Cardinals managed to take away.

Jack Suwinski’s fourth-inning grounder appeared headed for right field, but second baseman Nolan Gorman made a diving stop, popped up to one knee and threw him out at first.

Three innings later, Suwinski drove a middle-middle sinker to the warning track, but Bader settled under it with ease. At 407 feet, Suwinski’s fly out would’ve been a home run in 13 ballparks. Not Busch Stadium.

Suwinski wasn’t the only Pirate to come close. Diego Castillo scalded a 97.9 mph one-hopper at Brendan Donovan, but he handled the grounder with ease. Marcano hit a tough grounder up the middle, but Gorman fielded the ball on the backhand, threw the ball as his momentum took him towards third base and beat the diving Marcano at first.

The Cardinals’ defense wasn’t perfect -- they committed two errors, one of which resulted in a run -- but they made most of the necessary plays to keep the no-no intact.

Just not the last one.

“I’m happy that I was able to settle myself down enough to have a composed at-bat and come through,” Mitchell said.

Now, Mitchell and the Pirates enter the final game of their eight-game road trip looking to salvage one win. They’ll need to quickly wash away a day in which they didn’t just lose two games, extending their losing streak to nine, but, by their manager’s own admission, didn’t play well. There are many numbers that tell Tuesday’s tale, but two speak volumes:

Five errors. Eight hits.

The Pirates have proven themselves capable of competing against quality competition. It wasn’t long ago when they swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles. That was then. This is now. Mitchell’s double provided the most minute of moral victories, but moral victories can only go so far.

"We're in a tough stretch,” Shelton said. “We've got to keep grinding through it. I think up until today, we had played pretty good baseball. … Today, we just got handled a little bit."