ST. PETERSBURG -- On one hand, Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas has had the unfortunate luck of facing off against Cy Young Award winners Max Scherzer and Corbin Burnes and other top performers such as Kyle McClanahan, Sandy Alcantara, Freddy Peralta and Merrill Kelly.

The flip side of that is that many of the Cardinals see the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Mikolas -- an All-Star in 2018 -- in the same class as those aces the St. Louis righty has gone up against. In some ways, Mikolas was even better than the red-hot McClanahan over the course of Thursday’s brisk 1 hour, 54-minute game, but he somehow still got saddled with a 2-1 defeat that allowed the Rays to sweep the Cardinals.

“All those guys have to face Miles -- that’s the way I look at it,” said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol, referring to the aces that Mikolas (4-4, 2.93) has opposed. “He’s equally as good, and in order to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. Those guys are good, and I’d still pick Miles.”

Marmol felt confident in saying that after Mikolas needed just 85 pitches -- 61 of which were strikes -- to limit the Rays to three hits over eight innings. Mikolas not only struck out nine batters, but three of them were the three-pitch variety and three others required just four pitches. He retired the first nine batters he faced and 13 of the final 14.

The only mistakes for Mikolas -- a native of Jupiter, Fla., who had his brother, Douglas, on hand -- were allowing two singles to Kevin Kiermaier and a fourth-inning two-run home run to Ji-Man Choi. Of the 26 batters he faced, only two got to three-ball counts and none walked.

“I yanked a fastball that was supposed to be away and I just yanked it right into his bat,” Mikolas said of the Choi home run. “He was ready for it. Tip your cap, I made a mistake, and he was ready for it. I had made a few other mistakes earlier in the game that they hit to the warning track. He put a good swing on it.”

The analytical type who loves the mental side of baseball as much as he does the physical aspects, Mikolas was quick to point out that hitters run into tough luck as much as pitchers do. Case in point: Cardinals’ hitters smoked six balls at 100-plus miles per hour and a seventh at 99.5 mph off McClanahan (7-2, 1.87 ERA), but the Rays were well-positioned defensively. Marmol took the Cardinals approach against McClanahan (nine K’s, two hits allowed over eight innings) as a silver lining in an otherwise dark series.

“We had six or seven balls over 100 mph off him, but right at people. That game could look a lot different if we played it over again,” Marmol said with a twinge of disgust. “The reality is we hit balls extremely hard -- a lot of barrels right at people -- and that game could look a lot different if those fall.

“Balls were hammered,” Marmol added. “Of all the games that get played today, you find me a starting pitcher who gives up seven balls over 100 [mph] with one run, I’ll be really surprised.”

Marmol had no problem getting catcher Andrew Knizner to agree with him. On Thursday, a struggling Knizner hit line drives at 103.1 and 94.1 mph but had nothing to show for it. Also, he felt miserable catching a losing gem from Mikolas, and the Cardinals were forced to stomach some awful luck.

“Anybody that says [hard-hit] balls even out over the course of the season is lying to you,” Knizner opined. “It’s tough luck. I wish we could have gotten that win for Miles because he deserved it, but this game is tough, and it doesn’t always reward you.”

Mikolas has seen that firsthand time and again. Despite being among the NL leaders in ERA most of the season, he has just four wins. He now has 10 starts in which he has given up three runs or fewer, allowing him to pitch as well as many of the aces he’s faced.

“I hope other pitchers are rolling their eyes when they see they are matching up with me,” Mikolas said following the Cardinals' quickest game since needing just 1 hour, 52 minutes in Miami on Sept. 10, 2010. “If you want to be one of the guys at the top of the league, you‘re going to end up matching up against those No. 1 and No. 2 guys. I’ve got to tighten the buckle and do the best I can against those guys.”