Miles Mikolas has spent most of his big league life being judged on what happens when he has the ball, not what he does with the bat. On Wednesday, though, the former Cardinals right-hander put himself in a class that, according to the source, only Shohei Ohtani can share this season.
Mikolas, now with the Washington Nationals after signing a one-year, $2.25 million deal in the offseason, came through in extra innings against the Phillies with a bunt that turned into an RBI and later scored a run of his own. That made him the only pitcher besides Ohtani to both drive in a run and score one in MLB this season.
It came in a game Washington badly needed to steady. The Nationals had lost seven straight heading into Wednesday and were trying to shake off a stretch that had sent them sliding after a deadline sell-off. They opened the scoring when Keibert Ruiz singled in a run for a 1-0 lead, only for Philadelphia’s Luiz Arraez to answer with a home run off the right-field foul pole to tie it.
From there, the game stayed tight and kept pushing deeper into the night. The teams each scored once in the 10th to force an 11th, and that’s when Mikolas ended up at the center of it.
With Washington holding a two-run lead, a runner on third and nobody out, the Phillies turned to their last line of defense. Mikolas stepped in looking uncomfortable, then dropped down a bunt that brought home a run before the Phillies could get the runner at the plate. The play stretched the lead to three, and Mikolas later crossed the plate himself.
For a pitcher whose Cardinals years were defined more by his arm than his bat, it was a strange and memorable turn. Mikolas had arrived in St.
Louis after three years overseas and made an immediate impact in 2018 with a 2.83 ERA over 200.2 innings, but the next six seasons never came close to matching that level. His Cardinals run ended this past offseason, and in Washington he’s now been tasked with providing innings and veteran presence.
Instead, he added an odd little footnote to the season - one that, for now, puts him in the same sentence as Ohtani.
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