Cards need more length from Mikolas, other starters

ST. LOUIS -- Miles Mikolas has easily been the Cardinals' most consistent starting pitcher all season, even though he’s gotten little run support and has had to face a Who’s Who of Cy Young candidates across the way.

The fact that Mikolas -- who entered the day second in the National League with a 1.96 ERA -- was forced to throw a career-high 115 pitches while slogging through his worst start of the season Sunday was indicative of the tenuous position the Cardinals find themselves in with an overworked bullpen and a somewhat shaky staff.

When Mikolas failed to match zeros on the scoreboard with reigning National League Cy Young award-winner Corbin Burnes -- as he had done two times earlier this season while facing Max Scherzer and Sandy Alcantara -- the Cardinals had to stomach an 8-0 loss and a second series split with the Brewers.

The bigger issue, however, was that Mikolas was forced to pitch into the sixth inning on a day when he uncharacteristically surrendered nine hits, six earned runs and homers to Jace Peterson and Rowdy Tellez.

Not only did he throw six more pitches than his previous career high (109 in a shutout against the Royals in 2018), but he also tied for the fourth-most pitches thrown by an MLB pitcher this season.

The reason is that the Cardinals have been largely unable to count on starters Steven Matz, Dakota Hudson or Jordan Hicks for much length. Also, rookie Matthew Liberatore picked up his first MLB victory Saturday, but he lasted just five innings and only 4 2/3 in the outing prior.

Combine those factors with the Cardinals having to turn to a bullpen start out of the well-traveled Packy Naughton on Monday and a stretch of eight games coming in the next seven days, and the ballclub is right to be worried about the effect the short starts are having on the long-term health of the pitching staff.

“We needed [Mikolas] to cover six [innings] today, and that was our hope going into it,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said after his team managed just two hits off Milwaukee’s Burnes while striking out 11 times over seven innings. “We let [Mikolas] face a couple of extra hitters there while just using just two guys in [Nick] Wittgren and [T.J.] McFarland.”

The issue is the inability of much of the starting staff outside of Adam Wainwright and Mikolas to provide length to eat up innings.

Matz, who was signed to a four-year, $44 million deal over the winter, talked in Spring Training of wanting to be a 200-inning pitcher this season. However, he left a start in Pittsburgh last week after just four pitches with a left shoulder impingement and has averaged just 4 1/3 innings in nine starts.

Former closer-turned-starter Jordan Hicks, who also went onto the IL this week with a strained right forearm flexor tendon, was brought along slowly while building his arm up. However, even after the buildup, the hard-throwing Hicks had trouble going deep into games because of issues with walks and soaring pitch counts.

Similarly, Dakota Hudson -- who started using PitchCom this week to try and speed up his lagging pace, hasn’t made it six innings in a start since May 3.

“I’m trying to not be such a hassle, to give [the bullpen] an extra day off,” said Hudson, who has averaged less than five innings over nine starts this season. “Instead of pitching just 4 2/3, making six or seven is a lot easier on everybody involved. I’m never happy when I leave the game, but I look up [in Friday’s 4-2 win over Milwaukee] and I had no idea that I was at 97 pitches.”

Marmol is responsible for working with veteran pitching coach Mike Maddux to shepherd the pitching staff on a daily basis, but they also must think about the long-term health of the staff. Marmol talked at length earlier in the week about purposefully protecting reliever Ryan Helsley -- one of the regular relievers in baseball to not surrender an earned run yet this season -- to not burn him out early.

The same case could be made for closer Giovanny Gallegos and left-handed set-up man Genesis Cabrera, prompting Marmol to say: “We are going to have to be able to count on someone not named Gallegos, Helsley or Cabrera to get outs.”

One thing that would help, Marmol said pointedly, is being able to count on his team’s starters to go deeper into games.

“Can you get away with certain guys throwing just five innings? The answer is yes, and that’s totally fine sometimes,” Marmol said. “It’s just you can’t [do it often] because it puts a lot of stress on your bullpen. At some point, we need guys to take the ball and go more than five.”