WASHINGTON — Given the handful of comebacks already this season and the Monday night meltdown in D.C., there was something almost routine, even formulaic about how the St. Louis Cardinals finished their first road trip of 2026.

They got a quality start with gobs of groundouts and a defense deft enough to turn some sharp ones into outs.

They got another home run from Jordan Walker.

And they were able to line up their relievers just as they wished and stack on runs late for a no-drama 6-1 victory Wednesday afternoon against Washington at Nationals Park. Through four series, the Cardinals have won three of them, and they return to St. Louis with a different-looking lineup, some ongoing bullpen questions and a 3-3 record on this trip.

Considering some of the other games in the first dozen, Wednesday’s was humdrum. Just as they preferred.

Alec Burleson had three hits and three RBIs, including two on a single against former teammate Miles Mikolas (0-3), the Nationals’ starter. Michael McGreevy (1-1) allowed one run on a groundout through his six innings. Yohel Pozo entered the game was a pinch hitter in the seventh and ended his day with a two-run single in the ninth to increase the Cardinals lead.

The Cardinals added to their lead with Walker’s third homer in as many games against the Nationals and then another rally in the seventh inning that began with one of the Cardinals’ youngest players. JJ Wetherholt extended his streak of reaching base to 11 consecutive straight starts to begin his major league career. He’s the first Cardinals rookie since Walker with a streak that long and the first left-handed-hitting rookie for the Cardinals to reach base in that many consecutive games since Johnny Rodriguez in 2005.

When Wetherholt scored on Burleson’s third hit of the game, the rookie had a run for the ninth time in 11 starts.

The Cardinals’ leadoff hitter tops all rookies this season with 10 runs scored.

That widened the Cardinals lead to three runs and allowed them to cycle through their available late-inning relievers. The goal appeared to be to avoid JoJo Romero and Ryne Stanek after their heavy use earlier in the series, and the combination of effective work from Matt Svanson and added runs from Pozo made that possible.

Including Riley O'Brien's flawless ninth and lefty Justin Bruihl's eighth-inning out, Cardinals relievers held Washington without a hit for three innings.

Walker’s road flex continues

With his third home run of the series, his fourth home run of the road trip and his fifth home run of the season, Walker did what had been done one other time by a Cardinal: He was the first Cardinal age 23 or younger with four home runs in any five-game span since ... well, he did it in 2023.

This display sure seems different.

Walker took over the cleanup spot while on the road trip, and then the home runs really started. Walker had a home run in each of the three games at Nationals Park. In the fifth inning Wednesday, he tagged a pitch to dead center for a solo shot that put the Cardinals ahead 3-1.

Walker’s flex to start the year is the 17th time in Cardinals history that a player had at least five home runs in his first 12 games of the season. That list of players includes Hall of Famer Lou Brock and former MVPs Albert Pujols and Paul Goldschmidt.

Yet Walker is the first to hit five in that span before turning 24.

Mikolas’ abbreviated reunion

Veteran starter Mikolas’ first start against his former team was the opposite of what the Cardinals expected him to provide throughout his seven years and 204 games for St. Louis.

They banked on him shouldering innings.

He left Wednesday’s game before he’d finished four of them.

The Nationals said after the game they scripted three or four innings from Mikolas based upon the grind of his previous outings and high pitch count early in Wednesday's game.

The veteran right-hander who signed a one-year deal to give some seasoning and ballast to the Nats rotation squeezed nine outs from 17 batters. He entered the game with a 14.46 ERA, but the Cardinals didn’t bat him around or bruise him. He actually shaved two full runs off his ERA by the end of the three innings.

What they did was drive up his pitch count through those innings. It took him 55 pitches, and there wasn’t a breezy, easy inning for the right-hander.

He held them scoreless in the first inning despite the Cardinals loading the bases.

Burleson dropped a bunt on his former teammate to steal a base hit from the defensive alignment, and a bemused Mikolas pantomimed a bunt when he got Burleson’s attention. Mikolas escaped the inning with a ground ball that he handled at the mound and a toss home for the force-out.

The Cardinals were back to work in the second inning with a pair of one-out singles against Mikolas. After a walk to Ivan Herrera, the Cardinals had the bases loaded for the second time in as many innings. The former teammate who got the subtle bunt jab from Mikolas, Burleson then roped a single to center for two runs off Mikolas and the Cardinals’ early lead of the game.

McGreevy keeps Nats grounded

The search for his misplaced velocity will continue for right-hander McGreevy.

Not that he needed it Wednesday.

Movement was enough.

McGreevy spun Washington through six solid innings and his second quality start of the season. He has two of the Cardinals’ three starts of at least six innings and no more than three runs. McGreevy held the Nationals to one run on four hits, and he was able to further limit any chances Washington had against him by not walking a batter. McGreevy got 11 ground balls before yielding the game and the lead to the bullpen.

And he did all of that without his fastball surpassing 92 mph.

Through his three starts so far this season, McGreevy’s fastball has been hovering about 2 mph slower than his average a year ago. He said in Detroit that the dip is “keeping me up at night” but that he was overall unconcerned about it until the results shouted something different. Internally, the Cardinals are exploring reasons for the drop in velocity, and McGreevy’s health and physical strength has passed all of their evaluations.

What he’s working on is his mechanics — specifically generating more momentum with the engagement of his hips and legs. That has been a focus of his bullpen sessions.

Outs have remained the focus of his starts.

Two of the four hits that McGreevy allowed came from the first two batters he faced. Washington greeted him with back-to-back singles, but beyond that, the Nationals didn’t threaten him much. Two ground balls got McGreevy out of the first without allowing a run. The final seven Nationals who McGreevy faced grounded out.

The lone run he allowed?

Yeah, it came on a ground out, too.

McGreevy confounded the Nationals with seven different pitches, and a cluster of them were in the general velocity range of 85 to 89 mph. His cutter was on the low end, his four-seam fastball and sinker toward the higher end. And what he got from the mix of them was constant meek contact. Including a double play to end the third inning, McGreevy retired the final 11 Nationals he faced.

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