Jun. 21—WASHINGTON — Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas allowed just two runs over seven innings, but that wasn’t enough to extend the club’s winning streak as the offense left him hanging out to dry on a rainy day in the District of Columbia.

Mikolas, who took a sharply hit onehop grounder off the lower leg in the seventh inning and remained in the game to finish the inning, took the loss as the Cardinals lost 3-0 to the Washington Nationals on Wednesday afternoon in a rain-soaked finale of a three-game series at Nationals Park.

The loss snapped the Cardinals’ win streak at four games. They were shut out for the seventh time this season.

The Cardinals (31-44) have a day off Thursday as they arrive in London, England, in advance of their series against the Chicago Cubs. They’ve got a team workout scheduled for Friday.

Mikolas (4-5) recorded three strikeouts in the outing. He allowed eight hits and one walk in seven innings.

He has now received just one run of support in his four June starts, including three consecutive starts when the Cardinals didn’t score while he was still in the game.

Mikolas registered his 600th career strikeout when he sat down Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz on a called third strike to end the second inning.

Lars Nootbaar went 2-for-4 and snapped out of an 0-for-16 skid with a double in the first inning, his first hit since he returned from the injured list in the opening game of the series.

Nolan Arenado, who served as the designated hitter, went 1-for-3 with an infield single in the fourth inning. He’s now three hits from 1,600 for his career.

Dylan Carlson, Tommy Edman, Brendan Donovan and Nolan Gorman each also collected hits. Gorman’s ninthinning infield single came after an 0-for-19 start to the road trip.

The Nationals scored their final run against reliever Andrew Pallante in the eighth inning.

Trouble with Williams

The Cardinals hitters found success against both of the starting pitchers the Nationals sent out in the previous two games. They scored five runs in six innings against MacKenzie Gore on Tuesday night, and that came in the aftermath of them having scored six runs in five innings against Josiah Gray in the series opener.

However, right-hander Trevor Williams turned in a quality start and held the Cardinals scoreless on five hits in six innings. He didn’t walk a batter and struck out four. He pitched one batter into the seventh inning before he turned the outing over to the Nationals’ bullpen.

Williams’s only other start against the Cardinals came in 2022. He tossed four scoreless innings and struck out six in a no-decision on May 17, 2022.

Cardinals missed 7th inning scoring chance The Cardinals’ best scoring opportunity came in the seventh inning when Nootbaar’s leadoff single marked the end of Williams’ outing, and Arenado drew a walk to put two men on with no outs.

Willson Contreras’ ground out allowed both runners to advance and gave the Cardinals runners on second and third with one out.

However, Gorman struck out on a called third strike for the second out. Then Carlson grounded out to end the inning.

Donovan getting it done

Infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a two-out single in the third inning. He entered the day having gone 10-for-23 with a home run on the road trip. He’s the sixth Cardinals player with a hitting streak of at least 10 games this season.

He turned in his fifth three-hit game of the season on Tuesday night (3-for-5).

Since the start of June, he had the most hits of any Cardinals player (22). On May 22, Donovan was batting .241 with a .323 on-base percentage through 43 games.

In his last 25 games (24 starts) from May 23 through June 20, Donovan batted .323 with a .417 on-base percentage. He’s also hit four of his seven home runs this season during that stretch. He also walked nearly as many times (11) as he has struck out (12) in those 25 games.

“He’s using the whole field, not trying to do too much,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Donovan before the game. “He’s seeing the ball better, even at the expense at certain times, of getting calls against him that are borderline. But you have to be OK with that because that is part of his really good skill set — not chasing.

“So his ability to lay off pitches that are borderline that he can’t do a whole lot with anyways, we’re seeing more of that. Because of that, I think we’re seeing the version of Donny that we all really like. That’s a big player.”