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Rookie Pedro Pages belted a two-run homer and Miles Mikolas tossed 6 1/3 strong innings, lifting the visiting St. Louis Cardinals to a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Sunday afternoon.

Paul Goldschmidt had two of the nine hits for the Cardinals, who won the rubber match of this three-game series and improved to 4-1 in the season series.

Michael Busch had an RBI single in the seventh inning for the Cubs, who have lost 16 of their last 23 games.

St. Louis jumped out to a fast start as Brandon Crawford ripped a one-out double in the second inning. Pages then deposited a 0-2 sweeper from Jameson Taillon (3-3) over the wall in left-center field for his second homer of this series to help the Cardinals win for the fourth time in the past five games.

Miles Mikolas (5-6) followed up taking a no-hit bid into the seventh inning in his last outing before retiring the side in order through the first three frames on Sunday. He induced Nico Hoerner to ground into an inning-ending fielder’s choice to escape a bases-loaded jam in the fourth.

Mikolas allowed a one-out double in the seventh inning before being relieved by Ryan Fernandez. Busch followed two batters later with a single to left field to close the book on Mikolas, who allowed one run on four hits and struck out five batters.

Fernandez retired Miguel Amaya to end the seventh inning and Andrew Kittredge induced Cody Bellinger to fly out and struck out Seiya Suzuki to strand pinch runner Pete Crow-Armstrong at third in the eighth. Ryan Helsley retired the side in the ninth inning to secure his majors-leading 24th save of the season.

All was not positive for St. Louis, however, as Crawford grabbed at the back of leg following a swing during the eighth inning. Jose Fermin finished the at-bat in place of Crawford.

Taillon fell to 0-3 in his last seven starts despite permitting two runs on seven hits in six innings.

–Field Level Media