It was a day of face palms both offensively defensively for the Cardinals on Saturday. The team committed five errors and left 11 stranded in a 7-0 shutout loss to the Washington Nationals. The team also went 0-8 with runners in scoring position.
Kolten Wong was among the players who had at least one error in the game. It was his 5th of the spring after coming off a 2015 campaign where he had a career high 17. It’s certainly a concern for Cardinals fans seeing as how he can be hot and cold at the plate. Saturday, Wong went 2-2 with a double at the plate. Matt Carpenter (2), Ruben Tejada (1) and Greg Garcia (1) accounted for the other four errors.
Saturday was also Mike Leake’s toughest go around since joining the Cardinals pitching staff. He pitched 5 innings and gave up 7 hits and 4 runs including a home run off the bat of Ryan Zimmerman. One good note, Leake struck out seven.
Lefty reliever Kevin Siegrist and right hander Jonathan Broxton pitched the 8th and 9th respectively. They combined for three strikeouts and gave up just one hit and helped stop the bleeding caused by Leake and Rule 5 draft pick Matt Bowman.
Sunday will mark one week until Opening Day against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Jaime Garcia will make one of his last starts of spring training against the Miami Marlins. Jose Fernandez will take the mound for the fish.
-tvteddy
tvteddy 