MILWAUKEE — The pair of late-game relievers who pitched themselves into such trouble Saturday night got a second chance Sunday and cinched the lone win of the road trip.

This time, they got to cover for someone else’s misstep.

Riley O’Brien and JoJo Romero, the right-left combo the St. Louis Cardinals are using to close out games, pitched scoreless innings to hold tight for a 3-2 victory Sunday afternoon against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Cardinals scored all of their runs in the second inning, and they could have opened up a far larger lead if not for a baserunning mistake. By the time the game got to the bullpen, it was a one-run lead.

Four relievers combined for four scoreless innings, with O’Brien speeding through the ninth. A day after misplacing a lead by hitting two batters in the ninth inning, O’Brien did not allow a hit at all to close out his fourth save of the season. Romero pitched a scoreless eighth. Both relievers had to get the final out of their innings with the potential tying run on base.

The win ended the Cardinals’ five-game losing streak.

After a 1-5 road trip, the Cardinals return to St. Louis for their final homestand of the regular season.

The Cardinals turned a laborious inning for Brewers starter and Jose Quintana into a 3-0 lead in the second inning — and had to hold tight from there. A baserunning mistake kept the Cardinals from bouncing Quintana from the game in that inning and widening the lead.

Pitching made up for it.

Miles Mikolas held the Brewers to two runs through his five innings, and he did not complicate his outing with walks. Instead, he struck out five. He handed a one-run lead to a bullpen that splintered and burst Saturday. This time, it held.

Mikolas rides curve to K's

The way Mikolas navigated through five innings to maintain the lead presented to him by a single rally took a few curveballs.

A leadoff double in the second inning threatened to immediately answer the Cardinals’ three-run burst in the top of that inning. Mikolas didn’t let it.

He spun the bottom of the Brewers’ lineup with curveballs.

Mikolas struck out Jake Bauers with a curveball. He then dropped a curveball on catcher Danny Jansen. And to finish off the inning with three consecutive strikeouts, he challenged Andruw Monasterio with a fastball out of the same tunnel as the curveball. A day after his walk-off single sent the Brewers to a 10th-inning victory, Monasterio struck out swinging on a 93.6 mph fastball to end the inning. The Brewer who hit the double did not budge due to the three strikeouts.

Mikolas continued accumulating K's.

He struck out former MVP Christian Yelich on a curveball to end the third inning, and he caught leadoff hitter Sal Frelick staring at a sinker in the fifth inning. Mikolas mixed five strikeouts with five hits allowed, and the two runs the Brewers scored on him came on homers. Mikolas threw his curveball 21 times, more than any other pitch save the fastball, and the Brewers did not put one of them in play.

They fouled it off five times.

They took six of them for strikes.

And they swung and missed at it three times.

Blunder likely costs Cards runs

A caught stealing on a walk must be rare.

A caught stealing at third on walk is almost unthinkable.

Yet that’s what the Cardinals watched happen in the second inning to quash what could have been a run bonanza against the Brewers and lefty starter and former Cardinals pitcher Quintana. Six of the first seven Cardinals reached base safely in that inning, and the one who did not — Pedro Pages — hit a sacrifice fly to bring home the first run of the game.

Quintana would throw 40 pitches in the inning, allow four hits and walk two.

The Cardinals also stole two bases in the inning.

Nathan Church, the Cardinals’ rookie center fielder, worked Quintana through an 11-pitch at-bat that ended with the left-handed-hitting Church getting an infield RBI single off Quintana.

And yet, despite all that action, the Cardinals led by only 3-0.

The inning came undone at third due to a baserunning blunder.

Leadoff hitter Lars Nootbaar drew a walk that would have loaded the bases again with only one out. At third base, Jose Fermin bit on a pump fake throw. He had just stolen second base and reached third on Church’s single. But the pump fake drew him down the line as Nootbaar took off his gear to walk to first. Fermin had no reason to try and advance — and yet he did and was quickly caught in a rundown for the second out of the inning.

That gave Quintana an escape hatch.

He struck out Ivan Herrera, and the Cardinals had their lead to hold.

It was just thinner than it could have been.

This was a pivotal moment

In the sixth inning, lefty John King entered to hold a one-run lead to through a thicket of left-handed batters.

His biggest out may have been a right-handed batter.

The Brewers carved into the Cardinals’ early 3-0 lead with two solo homers, both off Mikolas. One of those homers was hit by Caleb Durbin (more on that below). The rookie right-handed hitter loomed as the fourth batter of the sixth inning against King if the Brewers could get there.

They did.

Singles from pinch hitter Andrew Vaughn and Brice Turang put the tying run in scoring position and the go-ahead run on base. The Cardinals stayed with King against Durbin despite the rookie’s better slugging percentage against lefties, .426 to .379 vs. right-handers.

King had to get that out, had to complete that pivotal assignment for the Cardinals to dictate a matchup with the next batter and later in the game.

King got it.

He struck out Durbin with two teammates on base to hold the lead where it was. Jorge Alcala then entered to push the Brewers into a decision that would shape the matchups later. Alcala got a hard line drive from pinch hitter Blake Perkins that Jordan Walker caught in right field to end the inning. If the game played out from there as the Cardinals plotted, Perkins would be the switch-hitting batter in that spot in the ninth.

He led off the inning against right-hander O’Brien.

WashU alum rakes vs. Cardinals

The Brewers trailed by three runs and Mikolas was on the brink of his fourth consecutive scoreless inning when a new — but now recurring — pest for the Cardinals emerged.

Durbin, the first position player from Washington University in St. Louis to reach the majors in generations, hit a solo homer to start the Brewers’ scoring. Durbin’s 11th homer of the season cut the Cardinals’ lead to 3-1 — and it continued his success against the team from his alma mater’s city.

The Brewers acquired Durbin from the Yankees in the Devin Williams trade, swapping a St. Louis native for a package of players that included a WashU alum. A rookie, Durbin has been part of the Brewers’ spunky defense and a regular contributor for the offense.

Ask the Cardinals. Sunday was the 10th game of his career against the Cardinals, and after he homered in the fourth inning, he was 12 for 28 vs. the Cardinals for a .429 average.

He doubled in his first at-bat, and when paired with the solo homer, that meant in his first 34 plate appearances against the Cardinals, Durbin reached base 18 times while the Cardinals retired him only 16 times.

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