Pedro Pages goes deep, Cardinals defeat Cubs

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 past 23 games.

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

After taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning in his last outing, Mikolas (5-6) retired the side in order in each of 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. Two batters later, Busch smacked his run-scoring single to left field to close the book on Mikolas, who allowed one run on four hits and struck out five batters. He did not issue a walk.

Fernandez got Miguel Amaya to ground into a fielder's choice to end the seventh inning, and Andrew Kittredge struck out Seiya Suzuki to strand pinch runner Pete Crow-Armstrong at third in the eighth. Ryan Helsley worked around two walks in the ninth inning to secure his major-league-leading 24th save of the season.

All was not positive for St. Louis, however, as Crawford grabbed at the back of his leg following a swing during the eighth inning. Jose Fermin finished the at-bat in place of Crawford, who was dealing with what the team believes to be a cramp.

Taillon fell to 0-3 in his past seven starts despite permitting just two runs on seven hits in six innings. He walked two and fanned three.