ATLANTA — A bruising road trip was five outs away from an uplifting finish for the Cardinals, but then finishes haven’t really been the Cardinals’ bailiwick this season.

Hounded all road trip by leaks in the bullpen, the Cardinals could not outrun them one last time before heading home from this lengthy swing through two National League East cities. Miles Mikolas was superb, holding a 1-0 lead the Cardinals claimed in the first inning all the way through his first quality start of the season.

Within nine batters of his departure, the bullpen had lost it.

Eli White cranked a three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth inning to shatter a tie game and send Atlanta to a 4-1 victory Wednesday afternoon at Truist Park. The Cardinals failed to score after the first inning despite several chances, and Atlanta did not lead in the game until that swing on a slider from Ryan Fernandez. White sent his first home run of the season into the seats beyond left field.

The loss was the Cardinals’ 11th on the road this month, and they finished the seven-game trip 1-6.

All three games in Atlanta were tied in the late innings.

Four of the Cardinals’ six losses on the road trip went to a reliever.

Fernandez lost a walk-off in New York and a send-off in Atlanta.

Fernandez entered the inning with two runners on base and catcher Sean Murphy looming as a pinch-hitter. Fernandez got Murphy to nudge a 12-foot grounder for an out and then could not get a slider past No. 7 hitter White.

Vintage Mikolas

While trying to find new ways to get the same old results, Mikolas dabbled in a bit of both through his finest start of the season, and one of his best in the past two years.

The veteran right-hander spoke earlier in the week about how he needed to earn the “trust factor,” especially if he was going to pitch deeper into games. The Cardinals had purposefully abbreviated his recent outings, replacing him in games before he would face a lineup for the third time or soon after that third time began.

How well Mikolas pitched Wednesday was clear with the inning he reached.

Mikolas retired the side in order in the sixth inning to finish the sixth inning for the first time this season. His scoreless outing was his first of at least six innings since Aug. 22. It was also his fourth scoreless outing of at least six innings in his past 37 starts.

Atlanta jumped Mikolas for two singles before he got an out, but the right-hander kept pumping strikes. He caught Marcell Ozuna flat footed with an 0-2 fastball over the plate. In the second, Mikolas walked the leadoff hitter, but benefited from a pickoff that neutralized the inning with the leadoff hitter at the plate. As the game got older, Mikolas got better. His only perfect inning was his last inning, but he scattered savvy innings throughout.

Mikolas needed 89 pitches to complete the quality start.

It took two innings for the bullpen to erase what it made possible.

Two-out rally for lead

The run that Mikolas spent the entirety of his start protecting came before he threw a pitch.

In the top of the first inning, four Cardinals reached base safely, and yet only six went to the plate and the lineup mustered only the one run. A leadoff walk by Lars Nootbaar was his eighth to start a game already this season, but he didn’t get to second with a double play got Atlanta starter Bryce Elder back in charge of the inning.

His grip loosened with a walk to Nolan Gorman.

A day after delivering the decisive hit in the Cardinals’ 10-4 victory Tuesday night Gorman accepted a walk from Elder. He took second on a wild pitch. Moments after a ground ball put him an out away from a scoreless inning, Elder was suddenly facing Nolan Arenado with a runner in scoring position.

Arenado’s scorching liner to center scored Gorman for a 1-0 head start.

The Cardinals had two more cracks at increasing the lead before Mikolas took the mound, but neither produced a run.

With Mikolas gone, Atlanta ties it

It took three batters for Atlanta to mark the departure of Mikolas with a tie game.

Lefty John King replaced the starter for the beginning of the seventh inning and the bottom of Atlanta’s lineup. King struck out the pinch-hitter Atlanta went immediately to in order to greet the lefty with a right-handed batter. Trouble followed. No. 9 hitter Nick Allen doubled down the left-field line to get into scoring position for Michael Harris II's one-out, game-tying single.

The Cardinals entered the day among the league leaders in blown leads that result in losses. They’ve done it seven times.

Harris at first made for a possible eighth.

Right-hander Kyle Leahy replaced King and continued tightening his grip on a late-inning, small-lead setup role. Leahy struck out Austin Riley, a thorn for the Cardinals all week (see below), and then got a popup from designated hitter Ozuna to end the threat.

The one that didn’t get away

Even Mikolas sank into a squat as the baseball rose toward the wall.

In the fifth inning, Mikolas snapped leadoff hitter Harris' bat but not enough to keep a single from slipping up the middle and putting the potential tying run on base. The next hitter, third baseman Riley, has made a habit of punishing pitches from the Cardinals. A ball he hit several years ago at Busch Stadium off Jake Woodford traveled 473 feet and is one of the longest ever hit at the ballpark — if, that is, it’s even landed yet.

Riley had three infield singles Tuesday, crushed a two-run homer Monday, and roped a single off Mikolas in the first inning Wednesday.

He got a hold of ball that seemed certain to reach the seats in the fifth.

So certain that Mikolas even reacted as if it did.

And then it didn’t.

Nootbaar caught the ball at the track, somewhere between 375 feet and 385 feet away from home plate.

All game, the ball was not hopping and soaring like it usually does at Truist Park. Riley’s fly out had all of the metrics to illustrate that. The ball left his bat at 105.2 mph. It traveled at an angle that usually leaves the ballpark. According to Statcast data, Riley’s bolt would have been a home run in 29 of the 30 ballparks. Given how hard it was hit, its angle, and its direction, Baseball Savant estimated it traveled 388 feet — and yet it was caught short of that for the out.

Two batters later, Mikolas got a groundout that would have been a groundout in 30 of 30 ballparks to end the inning and continue to vex Atlanta.

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