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Max Muncy crushed two home runs in his first two at-bats to power swift bursts of runs against Cardinals’ starter Miles Mikolas. The Cardinals pivoted to their bullpen quickly – at the start of the fourth inning – but could not slow the Dodgers, who cruised to a 12-6 victory at Dodger Stadium. Muncy had four RBIs, and his teammate Teoscar Hernandez also hit two home runs and had four RBIs. Combined that pair of Dodgers went 7 for 10 in the game with five extra-base hits, four of them off Mikolas.

The Cardinals’ veteran right-hander allowed five runs on seven hits. It was the fifth time this season that Mikolas has allowed at least five runs but only the second time he failed to complete the fourth inning. No reason other the score and his pitching line was given for his exit by the time this story was published, but an explanation will be provided after the game.

Mikolas (6-9) threw only 67 pitches.

The trio of MVPs atop the Dodgers’ lineup keyed rallies early and stacked on the statistics later.

Sandwiched between Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts entered the game in an 0-for-20 funk. He doubled to start the pull-away rally in the second inning and reached base in each of his final four plate appearances. He scored in three innings and was on base for Muncy’s second homer and Hernandez’s second homer.

The previous time this season the Cardinals allowed multiple homers to two opponents was the Fourth of July against the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Mikolas also started that game.

Abbreviated outing for Mikolas

Mikolas’ pitch count was into the 50s before he collected his seventh out of the game, and rather them have him bulldoze through innings and pile up the pitches, his evening was over suddenly.

The Cardinals’ quick hook came after three innings.

Trouble came in tandems for the veteran right-hander.

In the first inning the Dodgers took a 2-0 lead on back-to-back pitches. Freeman lofted a curveball for a sacrifice fly that scored Ohtani. Mikolas’ next pitch – a 95.1-mph sinker – landed in the seats for Muncy’s first home run of the evening.

In the third inning, three of the first four batters of the inning pounded extra-base hits off Mikolas to regain the lead. Muncy and Hernandez hit back-to-back home runs off Mikolas to first break the 2-2 tie and then extend the Dodgers’ lead. Between back-to-back pitches and back-to-back homers, the Dodgers scored five runs on seven hits against Mikolas. Six of the first 14 batters he faced had extra-base hits, and three of them soared over the wall for home runs.

Just back from the injured list on Monday, Muncy had two of them.

The abbreviated start reverses the results of Mikolas’ previous two starts – when an uptick in velocity corresponded with more consistent results. Including five shutout innings against San Diego, Mikolas had limited opponents to two runs in his previous 11 innings and he allowed only one homer in that span. The Dodgers crammed far more than that into their three-inning glimpse of the veteran. His ERA for the season swelled to 5.11.

Cardinals’ rallies: major and minor

Willson Contreras led off the second inning with what should have been the first of his three hits. He pulled a hard groundball to Muncy at third and it ricocheted off the third baseman’s backhand. Initially ruled a single, the official scorer changed it to an error.

That scrubbed a few earned runs from Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan’s ERA but didn’t change how they looked on the scoreboard.

With Contreras on base, Nolan Gorman lofted his first home run since the All-Star break and tied the game. Gorman’s thunderclap traveled 425 feet into the seats beyond the right-field wall and left his bat like a rocket – at 109.1 mph. The 2-2 tie survived until the third inning, Mikolas’ final inning.

The Cardinals made nibbles into LA’s lead, but spent every inning after Mikolas’ departure chasing the Dodgers. In the top of the seventh, Ivan Herrera shifted the course of his three-strikeout night with a two-out RBI single to score Gorman. In the eighth, Contreras drilled a pitch to dead-center field for a solo home run and his 16th of the season and second of the two-stop road trip through California.

The Cardinals added on two runs in the ninth thanks to a wild pitch that brought home one and a sacrifice fly by Alec Burleson to score the other.

Svanson’s punctuation vs. Ohtani

The first reliever into the game to cover the leftover innings was Matt Svanson, who is emerging as one of the examples of the Cardinals’ overhauled player development program.

Svanson has made strides with his velocity and using it effectively, and in the fourth inning he blitzed through the first three Dodgers he faced. Svanson struck out the side in order, finishing with a strikeout of Ohtani.

The right-hander challenged the reigning MVP with a series of cutters.

Ohtani fouled off a 93.4-mph cutter to start the at-bat.

Ahead in the count, 2-1, Ohtani fouled off a 92.4-mph cutter.

Svanson came back with the same pitch but with more horsepower.

Ohtani missed the 94.8-mph cutter for the inning-ending strikeout.

That was the swiftest cutter Svanson threw in the game.

The right-hander would finish the evening with two scoreless innings. He retired six of the seven batters he faced and got five whiffs. The one hit he allowed was Betts’ second hit of the game, and he struck out four. His final strikeout came against Hernandez with Betts on third base in the fifth inning.

Dodgers pile on

What Svanson was able to do against the top of the Dodgers’ billion-dollar lineup looked even more impressive when compared to what happened when Ohtani & Co. came up in the seventh and eighth innings against the Cardinals’ bullpen.

Newly back from Class AAA Memphis, Ryan Fernandez drew the seventh inning and the top of LA’s order. He promptly walked both Ohtani and Betts to put a mess of an inning in motion. Freeman got Fernandez to a full count before flying out to right field.

That would be the only out of the first four batters in the inning.

Muncy added his fourth RBI of the game by pulling a groundball single through a seam to score Ohtani. That hit jettisoned Fernandez from the game – but left two runners on base to further swell his ERA. Andre Granillo entered to face Hernandez and fell behind 2-0.

He hung a slider and Hernandez launched it for a three-run homer.

Immediately after the Cardinals trimmed LA’s lead back down to two runs, the Dodgers lacquered five runs on two relievers to turn the evening into a rout. Three of the runs belonged to Fernandez in exchange for his one out, and the other two came off Granillo, who faced five batters and allowed three hits. In the eighth, Ohtani and Betts primed another rally against Granillo with singles, and Freeman added on with his second sacrifice fly of the game.

Betts scored three batters later.

The only time that trio came up and did not produce at least a run was when Svanson was on the mound.