The difficulty I have here is that your treatment, taken on its face, suggests that Mikawa should never been ordered down into the Slot in the first place. At least not under those conditions, with Fletcher's carriers still at large.
He should not have been. When Goto tried it again, look at what happened to him. And that result was without carriers.
Savo Island was a lot of Allied bad luck and a bad allied admiral (Richmond Kelly Turner). Eerily similar to a situation off Santiago de Cuba on 3 July 1898, where the two guys in local charge, Sampson (sea) and Schafter (land) left the Blue Force spinning its screws and utterly confused. That time, a leader, Schley, disobeyed orders and charged recklessly into battle and won. Turner (sea) and Vandegrift (land) , were at loggerheads 8-9 August 1942 and managed to mistime another commanders meeting to iron their differences out. The Blue Force captain's call pulled Crutchley, too, away from his post, so there was nobody, like a Schley, (Crutchley was a hero of Narvik.) to watch the situation while the idiots in charge held their argue fest about unloading the transports.
Captain Bode, (USS Chicago Actual) the guy left holding the bag in Crutchley's absence, was no Schley. Based on his earlier actions 31 May-1 June in the IJN attack on Sydney Harbor, he, Bode, should have been summarily relieved and sent home to be reassigned. It would have saved his life and career. He was ashore during the IJN minisub attack on Sydney. When he returned to the ship, he accused his ship's officers of being drunk and of them firing wildly and blindly into Sydney Harbor. He threatened courts martials and summary reliefs. They, the Chicago's command group, were proved correct in their actions, by the Australians, when they confirmed USS Chicago successfully engaged a Japanese X-craft and spoiled its attack. Strange violent temperamental unstable man was Bode. He was obviously not up to the pressures of a major command and was a poor decision maker, proved to be no trainer or manager of men and he was a BAD ship's captain. He shot himself on 19 April 1943 after a board of inquiry was about to find him culpable for his "bizarre" (As in orders he issued that had Chicago running away from enemy contact.) actions during the Savo Island action.
Poor Chicago, unlucky ship. Never got a chance to right herself before Rennell Island.