MLB – For a few hours, Miles Mikolas kept the hopes of the playoffs of St. Louis Cardinals

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The money in all this for St. Louis was that Mikolas, one of the baseball pest, wore a mustache on his upper lip. Mikolas bears the nickname "The Lizard King", so it was Jim Morrison himself called Doors, saying, "I'm the lizard king, I can do anything."

All the cardinals needed a performance similar to that of Mikolas, and they had it. Mikolas sailed through eight innings against the Cubs, allowing only an unexpected start in the first. St. Louis climbed a pair of points to support him, one of these being also of the un-won variety, and escaped with a 2-1 win.

Not bad for an unrecognized independent player, released from Japan last winter, who has not participated in the major leagues since 2014. He has come a long way, literally as well as figuratively.

"To be the guy they're looking for," Mikolas says. "It's another dream come true, a lot of hard work and hard work."

Yet under the elimination column, the number remained "1".

"It's fun," Mikolas said. "A lot of intensity, I think that's why many of these players play baseball, face the best and have a good time, we played a great game and it was very amusing."

Mikolas won his 18th match with the performance and lowered his ERA to 2.83. He finished a perfect 10-0 on the road. Mikolas has been the constant in a downward season for the Cardinals. He reached the mark of 200 innings, during which he only covered 29 batters all season. He achieved his 20th quality start in 32 outings.

True to his routine, Mikolas did not beat the hitter on Saturday, he is in his 12th time this season. His pace of 1.3 paces in nine innings is the lowest of all qualified pitchers in baseball. This, and a well-developed ability to work on the set, allowed him to succeed in the era of strikes, even though his own success rate (6.6K / 9) is well below the average of the big league .

"Miles is a microcosm of what we look at," said Cardinals coach Mike Shildt, "it's a constant competition, and that's what you're going out of it." Is what wins, thanks to him, even square, and comes out and throws in. Just a fantastic job today. "

It was a nice return performance for St. Louis after Friday's loss 8-4, during which St. Louis made three mistakes in one of the most failed efforts of the brief period of time. Shildt. For a while on Saturday, it looked more like the same thing, as the Cardinals made a lousy facial to finish their season.

With Ben Zobrist of Chicago, first and second outs, Javier Baez snatched a blooper in the center right short that was enough for second baseman Yairo Munoz. But the ball came out unceremoniously from Munoz's glove, allowing Zobrist to score first. It was the Cardinals' fourth mistake in the first 10 innings of the series.

On top of that, Chicago starter Cole Hamels was crossing the St. Louis team, putting the first nine Redbirds in order. Eventually, Matt Carpenter managed, after the receiver's intervention, to lead the fourth goal, was second on a sidewalk and scored on a Paul DeJong single. In the fifth, Harrison Bader opened the scoring with one shot per throw, came in second on a sidewalk and scored on a Carpenter success.

That's all. St. Louis only counted these two races, both widely offered by the Cubs. Thanks to Mikolas, it was enough.

"That says a lot," said Shildt. "There was no compromise with this club today, we are proud of them, a difficult and competitive game, we took advantage of the situation, it was hard to fight."

It's easy to see this as a microcosm of the St. Louis season: by the time it seemed completely dead, it's reborn. With that, the Cardinals put the Cubs in the same position: wringing their hands about a game taking place in another city.

Saturday's gem was as far as the lizard king's controlling powers could take them. Even Mikolas could not influence the events in San Francisco, where the Giants faced the Dodgers. St. Louis needed to lose L.A. to signify the final of Sunday's regular season with a little significance for the Cardinals. The dream faded, but he was alive when he left Wrigley. This dream is a dream in which St. Louis hosts Los Angeles at Busch Stadium on Monday in a tiebreaker match for the NL Wild Card's latest slot.

"We did everything we could do today," said Mikolas. "I know some guys on the Giants, maybe (I'm going to) send some SMS, pump them, get them ready for the game." We'll go get a dinner and a beer and see how this game unfolds. "