Adam Wainwright Goes 4 2/3 Scoreless for Cardinals; KC Wins Again, Johnny Giavotella goes 3-for-4

Players of the Day for Saturday, March 9, 2013

Grapefruit League

Adam Wainwright

If the St. Louis Cardinals are going to contend in the NL Central this season, they'll need their full complement of starting pitchers and that includes one Adam Wainwright, the 2010 All-Star who missed all of 2011 due to injury and surgery and came back in 2012 healed, but not as overpowering, posting a 14-13 mark with a 3.94 ERA.

In a positive sign for the lanky right=hander, Wainwright tossed 4 2/3 shutout innings in his longest outing of the exhibition season thus far, allowing three hits while fanning six as the Cardinals topped the Marlins, 2-0.

Wainwright was sharp, walking just one to run his record to 2-1, getting help from Pete Kozma, who drove in both St. Louis runs with a fourth-inning double.

The Cardinals improved to 8-5, good for third place in Grapefruit standings, while the Marlins fell to 5-7.

Cactus League

Johnny Giavotella

After suffering their first loss of the Spring on Thursday (a 12-2 loss to Seattle) and having a pair of split-squad games rained out on Thursday, the Kansas City Royals got back to their winning ways with a 13-2 smashing of the world champion San Francisco Giants.

The Royals padded their stats with 20 hits off seven San francisco hurlers, seven players had multiple-hit outings. One of those was backup second baseman Johnny Giavotella, who cracked three singles in four at-bats, scored once and drove in four runs.

Johnny G. played 53 games for the Royals in 2012, but hit just .238. He's battling with Chris Getz for the starting spot at second, and is batting .318 thus far with seven hits and seven RBI.

Kansas City continues to lead the Cactus League standings with a 12-1 record. The Giants are just 4-7.