When the team you love is in dire straights, sometimes you have to turn to the petty. Even if only for a few minutes so that you can forget about just how bad things have become for the Cubs.
Which is to say, I feel SOME human empathy for St. Louis Cardinals righty Miles Mikolas missing out on some history, but there’s at least a small part of me that is relieved I don’t have to think about MORE greatness for the Cardinals (who are 2.5 games up in the NL Central now).
All he needed was one more strike, and instead, the first hit of the night fell just out of reach:
The irony of that being the hit that ended the no-no is that, with normal defensive positioning, it’s probably a catch for Harrison Bader. But he was playing way in to try to cut down any singles, understandably, because of the no-hitter.
It wasn’t a shutout, by the way, because of a runner who scored on a groundout after reaching on an error. So, hey, surely that softens the blow for Mikolas, right?
Throwing 129 pitches in this day and age, though. Mercy. I totally get it in the moment, but you don’t want to see a guy impacted the rest of the way or suffer an injury because of it (yes, even a Cardinals pitcher).
For his part, Mikolas seemed to be really positive after the game overall, admitting that it was a bummer, but otherwise just saying all the right things. Props to him: