Former Cardinal Miles Mikolas picks up where he left off with Washington Nationals

For the last three years, St. Louis Cardinals fans have been subjected to watching starter Miles Mikolas toil through five or six long innings, often giving up multiple runs at a time and taking the ballclub out of the game before the halfway point.

With the Florida native having hit free agency this past offseason, now it's someone else's turn to go through the emotional rollercoaster that is a Miles Mikolas outing. The Washington Nationals got their first taste on Saturday afternoon.

Former St. Louis Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas throws a clunker in his Washington Nationals debut.

Miles Mikolas made his season debut and Washington Nationals debut on Saturday afternoon against his former division rival in the Chicago Cubs in the Windy City.

Historically, Mikolas has not fared well against the Cubs, especially in Chicago. He's pitched 15 games at Wrigley Field and has a 3-6 record with a 4.91 ERA and a 1.445 WHIP. Opposing hitters have a .828 OPS against him at Wrigley. Against the Cubs for his career, he has a 6-9 record with a 3.86 ERA in 26 games, clearly showing that Busch Stadium has helped his career numbers against the Cubs.

Mikolas was rocked in 2025 against the Cubs. He made just two starts at Wrigley Field last year, but he allowed 12 runs in only 11 innings for a 9.82 ERA. He allowed a whopping nine home runs, including a game on July 24th where he allowed six home runs and eight earned runs. Suffice it to say, Miles Mikolas is not a fan of Wrigley Field.

So when he took the mound for his new club, the script was fairly obvious.

Altogether, Mikolas (0-1) went five innings for the Nationals on Saturday, striking out four and walking three. Six runs scored on his watch, but only four of the six were earned runs due to an error by shortstop Nasim Nunez in the second inning.

The second inning is where the wheels started to fall off for Mikolas. He struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong to start off the frame then allowed consecutive walks to Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson. Moises Ballestros singled to load the bases, and then Matt Shaw hit a sacrifice fly, scoring Hoerner and putting two outs on the board.

A single by Miguel Amaya added to the score, but then Nunez's error extended the inning further, allowing the Cubs to score two more runs, running their total up to four runs in the blow-up inning. Nunez was running backwards into the outfield trying to catch a ball that was the left fielder's, bumping into Daylen Lile and causing the ball to drop down.

Mikolas went unscathed in the third and struck out the first two batters in the fourth inning before giving up a home run to Miguel Amaya.

In the bottom of the fifth inning, Pete Crow-Armstrong singled and then scored on a double by Nico Hoerner. Mikolas made it through the frame, but he hardly gave the Nationals a chance with his outing. This double was an all-too-familiar sight for Cardinals fans: a hanging curveball at the top of the zone.

After years of being tormented by Miles Mikolas starts, Cardinals fans can now rest a bit easier knowing they won't have to see 30 outings that could blow up at any moment in 2026. It's just a shame this bad start had to come against a division rival so early in the year.