Jul. 4—MIAMI — While yet to prove they’re at all adept at it, the Cardinals have enough experience halfway through this season to at least know what it takes to win one-run ballgames.

They’ve seen plenty of opponents do it.

“You’ve got to do everything right,” starter Miles Mikolas said late Monday night. “Make a mistake, lose ballgame. When the games are that tight any little mistake can cost you.”

He speaks from experience. Recent experience. The Cardinals made a series of these little mistakes in the seventh inning Monday night against the Miami Marlins and rapidly misplaced a two-run lead. Two walks, one errant fastball from Andre Pallante, and three runs later, the Marlins reversed the Cardinals’ lead in another case of one-run whiplash. Within four batters the Cardinals went from leading a game to trailing in a game and eventually losing said game, 5-4, to Miami at loanDepot Park.

The loss was the Cardinals’ 17th blown save of the season and their 17th loss in their 25 one-run games. Those are related.

The win was the Marlins’ 20th in their 25 one-run games.

“It comes down to executing the right pitch at the right time,” Pallante said. “I came up in a big spot and he put a good swing on the first pitch, and I didn’t locate a first pitch.”

All the reasons the Cardinals have struggled in onerun games are a lot of the reasons Skip Schumaker and the Marlins have had success: It’s the pitching, people. The Marlins have a top 10 pitching staff, and they have spent most of the season as a top five rotation. In 43 of their 86 games, the Marlins have allowed three or fewer runs. In 35 of those 86 games, the starter has allowed two or fewer runs. In 51, the starter has allowed three or fewer. The bullpen has the secondmost holds (56) in the National League, routinely holding tight games in late innings. All of that is why, at 20-5 in one-run games, the Marlins are on pace for one of the best winning percentages ever in one-run games.

The Cardinals, for sake of comparison, lead the majors with 17 blown saves.

Their 17th came on Pallante’s fastball in the seventh inning to a pinch-hitter that Schumaker had stashed for just that moment.

Before the game got to Pallante, it had to get away from Mikolas.

After an abbreviated attempt to call his own game — Mikolas called pitches from the mound in the first inning, allowed two runs, and turned the rest of the game over to catcher to Willson Contreras because “it’s not as easy as it looks” — the right-hander settled in. (“I gave up,” he said. “I’m not good at calling pitches.”) With Contreras making the choices, Mikolas got 16 outs from the next 16 batters. He retired 14 consecutive going into the heart of the seventh. The bottom of the order had stung him for a series of line drives and deep fly balls that were caught to aid his run of consecutive outs.

With one out in the seventh and the back half of the Marlins’ lineup due, Mikolas walked consecutive batters. He expressed his frustration toward home-plate umpire C. B. Bucknor, asking him — in colorful terms — to call the bottom of the strike zone.

“I think he had been giving me some balls up in the zone,” Mikolas said. “I knew for a fact that I threw some good pitches down that weren’t getting (it). I was a little frustrated with that. I also know for a fact that the other team was getting balls down that were not strikes. I asked him nicely if I could please have low strikes, and he said, ‘No,’ I think. He said it was ‘too low,’ maybe.”

Regardless, the Marlins had the tying run on base and left-handed batter Joey Wendle coming to the plate. The Cardinals had Pallante warm in the bullpen.

He got the call. The choices for Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol were to stick with Mikolas against the bottom three spots in the Marlins’ order, go to Pallante, or call on a left-handed reliever like Genesis Cabrera to face Wendle. Marmol figured Schumaker would not let him get that last matchup. Yuli Gurriel was available off the bench and Marmol decided he preferred the Gurriel vs. Pallante matchup to Cabrera vs. Gurriel or Chris Stratton vs. Wendle. Marmol explained that their scouting reports suggest that Gurriel is vulnerable to velocity and groundballs. Those are Pallante’s specialties.

“If you look at Gurriel, even right on right, you know Pallante is better against lefties, but he struggles against velo, he doesn’t cover the outside part of the plate or down, which is what Pallante’s pitches do,” Marmol said. “If he locates his fastball the way he normally does, it goes in our favor. Didn’t locate it.

“That was still our best matchup — Pallante on Gurriel.”

There are still some teams in the majors (ahem, Brewers) that will prefer a lefthanded bat against Pallante despite the right-handed reliever’s reverse splits and counterintuitive break on his pitches. Not Schumaker. Not having watched from the Cardinals’ dugout all of last season, Pallante’s rookie season. Schumaker had the right-handed hitting Gurriel available, complete with his greater success against righthanded pitching.

Though, right on right, he hits a groundball 40% of the time.

Pallante, right on right, gets a groundball 69.7% of the time.

“My fastball is my best groundball pitch, and it’s hard,” Pallante said. “I think it was the right pitch.”

It was the wrong location. Make a mistake, lose ballgame.

Pallante left the 98-mph fastball over the plate, not down and in, and Gurriel poked it up and over to right field. Both of the walks scored to tie the game, 4-4. A speed pinch-runner came in for Gurriel at second base and then promptly scored when Pallante gave up another hit to another right-handed batter — this one on the ground but past a diving Paul Goldschmidt.

“Pallante is going to have to be able to navigate the righties,” Marmol said. “He’s going to have to be able to pitch in those situations. That’s just the reality of it.”

The Marlins had the onerun lead and then put on a clinic on how to hold it.

Starter Braxton Garrett got them into the sixth inning with a quality start. Three relievers took the Marlins through the seventh, eighth, and ninth without allowing a run. Those three Miami relievers struck out five of the 14 they faced. The tying run got to first base in the ninth inning, and that’s as close as the Cardinals would get to a tie game before A. J. Puk secured his 14th save. Ahead of him Tanner Scott got his 15th hold. Huascar Brazoban got the win for his scoreless seventh. That’s how a team wins a one-run game. The Cardinals don’t have any reliever with more than 10 holds or eight saves, and it’s one reliever who leads them in both of those categories — Giovanny Gallegos.

Three different relievers have four blown saves.

Fittingly, Pallante had one word to describe the bullpen’s role in the one-run losses. “Disappointing.”