WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The Nationals’ Anibal Sanchez has not faced the Cardinals since he set the tone for Washington’s 2019 National League Championship Series sweep by scoring a no-hitter in the eighth inning of Game 1.
The Cardinals ended by scoring against Sanchez that night in a Washington 2-0 win over Miles Mikolas. The Cardinals had 12 times as many hits from Sanchez in four innings on Wednesday in a 29-8 smackdown. For the day, the Cardinals had a whopping 26 hits, blasting open an already one-sided 15-run game in the eighth inning.
Paul DeJong, hitting .471 for the spring, tapped in five runs with a three-run homer (by reliever Austin Voth) and a single.
Paul Goldschmidt, who came in with .400, bumped his average to .526 with four hits, including two singles and a home run ahead of Sanchez.
Yadier Molina, playing in his second game of the spring, had a long homer down the left and a double.
Leadoff man Dylan Carlson, who was on base three times in four plate appearances, had a single in each of the first two innings ahead of Sanchez, who hadn’t pitched last season and who was mercifully canceled after 89 pitches.
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Albert Pujols, appearing in Cardinals livery for the first time since the 2011 World Series, got caught in a base-rich doubles game, scoring a run, showing up with two men and then singles in his third at-bat while serving as designated Bat.
“It feels good to be back in a real game, on the field, competing and facing the pitching in the big league,” Pujols said I would be able to play today — and it was good. I felt like I did some great swings and tried to get my feet wet again.
In his second Grapefruit League start, Mikolas allowed a five-inning run, allowed just four singles — one from a broken bat — and hit a hitter. He walked nobody and fanned out two while throwing 68 pitches, 44 for strikes.
Mikolas left the game after fading out the Nationals, but the last hitter he faced reached base with a hit in the sixth, and left-hander TJ McFarland later allowed a three-run homer for Josh Bell in a four-run inning.
That and more was answered by the Cardinals reserves in the round of 16, although rookie Juan Yepez had to go after being hit by a punch to the left side of his face.
In the regular season, the Cardinals had never hit as many runs in an innings as 15, hitting their previous high of 12 twice, most recently in Chicago in 2012. Her regular-season high of 28 hits came in 1929 in Philadelphia.
The Cardinals are 6-4 for the spring and Washington, unsurprisingly, is 1-10.