VIERA, Fla. • Michel Wacha’s second spring start for the Cardinals on Sunday was an abbreviated affair. Not in pitches (45) but in innings (two).
Filling almost every statistical category, Wacha allowed six hits, five of them singles, and walked one, in giving up three runs to the Washington Nationals. Wacha also committed a balk and threw a wild pitch while fanning two.
Washington scored all three of its runs off Wacha in the first. But of the six hits he allowed, only a couple were really hit with authority.
Jordan Walden, continuing his comeback from a rotator cuff issue that cost him most of last season, knocked off his fourth straight scoreless outing, working a perfect third as the Cardinals continued to trail Washington 3-1.