Mar. 9—TAMPA, Fla. — With only a few more pitches to spend, a scoreless tie to hold and a former MVP plate at the plate, Cardinals righthander Jake Woodford got the moment he has prepared for so many times on the back fields of spring training and never got the opportunity.

Yankees clean-up hitter Giancarlo Stanton, jammed by a two-strike sinker, hit Woodford’s pitch up but not high enough to go far enough for anyone other than the pitcher to catch.

Here it was: Woodford’s chance to snag a fly.

“Called it. Two hands,” Woodford said. “It might not have been the most athletic look ever. The play was made.”

And that was just the pop quiz.

Woodford aced the real test.

Against a pinstriped lineup that featured three former MVPs and a total of 10 Silver Slugger awards in the top five spots, Woodford challenged the Yankees with a confident assortment of pitches and held them scoreless for four innings. The Cardinals followed his lead, Jordan Walker’s two hits, and Brendan Donovan’s three-run homer to a 4-0 victory.

The second time Woodford faced reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge, he struck him out on a fastball when Judge hesitated with his swing as if expecting Woodford’s new, improved slider to veer from the strike zone. The four-seamer did not. Three batters later Woodford had a statement outing that earned raves from the manager.

“Awesome,” said Oliver Marmol.

“Very impressive,” added Marmol.

“He did a really nice job with that lineup,” the manager continued. “He was super stubborn with the sinker down in the zone. Didn’t get a couple of calls that were balls but didn’t feel like he had to give in and come down the middle. He just continued to pepper the bottom of the zone and then the slider — that is exactly what we’re talking about. Look at what that pitch did. One, he landed it at a high rate. And then he movement on it was exactly what we’ve talked about.”

Three blocks away from where he throws in the offseason and within 10 minutes of where he grew up, Woodford asserted his bid to be in the big-league bullpen and have a chance at a prominent role, not a perpetual roll up and down the interstate to Class AAA Memphis.

With two starters away on Team USA for the World Baseball Classic, the schedule aligned for Woodford to get the assignment Wednesday at Steinbrenner Field in his hometown. The challenge was not clear until that morning. The Yankees’ network broadcast the exhibition game, so naturally the Yankees fielded a lineup they could have on opening day, from batting champ D.J. LeMahieu at leadoff to 62-homer Judge at No. 2 and 59-homer Stanton at cleanup. Before the start of the game, Marmol acknowledged the Yankees’ lineup was a welcome coincidence.

“Great for evaluation,” Marmol said. “Jake is one of the ones you’re homing in on.”

The Cardinals have a crowded joust for eight spots in the bullpen. A year ago, Woodford and Drew VerHagen dueled for an opening in the rotation until neither won it. This year, VerHagen has been recast as a reliever, and the Cardinals want him to be a late-inning neutralizer for right-handed threats. Woodford’s opportunity is more elastic. He’ll continue to build innings as a starter in spring training — which is both an opportunity for him to show where he fits and also a clear indication that an option for him is the Class AAA rotation.

He fluctuated between roles and levels in 2022, and due to the brevity of a demotion during the shortened 2020 season he does have one option year remaining.

That’s one more year of shuttling — unless he shoves his way into a spot.

“Jake could serve multiple roles depending on how his stuff looks and how it plays,” Marmol said. “It could be a long guy. He could be a middle relief, get a groundball. He could be that type of thing. He could be stretched out and a starter in Triple-A and be protection. We have to prepare ourselves for all of the above. ... At the same time, it’s not the only way he’s used in case of emergency. He can go and give you the fifth or the sixth (innings) or the sixth and the seventh, anywhere you’re at in the lineup. That’s why adding consistency to the slider and getting some more swing and miss allows him to do that sixth and seventh role more than just the emergency long-guy role.”

Woodford got the Yankees’ lineup on Wednesday morning and went through the scouting report on each hitter while preparing a triedand- true approach.

“Attack,” he said. “Stay ahead. Try to change speeds.”

Woodford wanted to establish his sinker, and he did by throwing it for his first six pitches. By the end of the first inning, he allowed a single to Judge and then erased him with a double play. It took Woodford nine pitches to get three outs on two groundballs. In the second, he pitched around a single and a walk by getting another double play. Prospect Masyn Winn helped end the inning with a back-tohome catch in shallow center field.

In the third, Woodford retired the Yankees in order, and that gave him the chance to face the middle of the order one more time with fewer than 50 pitches thrown.

Judge led off the fourth inning and got ahead in the count, 2-0. Woodford landed the pivotal slider for a strike. With that 81.6-mph bender in play, Woodford got back-toback fastballs past Judge for the strikeout looking. Judge gave a twitch of his bat at the 92.8-mph fastball that finished the at-bat.

“What I need to do to be successful at that point is executing,” said Woodford, who has allowed one run in nine innings this spring. “I know how my stuff plays, how I can get outs, how I can use pitches to set up other stuff. And that, it’s just execute, which is what I’m working on now, what I’m focused on.”

Throughout last season and this past winter, the Cardinals encouraged Woodford to tighten the shape of his slider. The team believed that analytics showed, in the long run, Woodford’s slider would be easily dismissed by hitters, and that would leave his fastballs vulnerable. He had to make the slider more consistent, get in the strike zone more often, and give it a greater bite. That way hitters know he can throw it for a strike and also have a harder time discerning it from the fastball before it moves.

After he completed his four innings on 64 pitches, Woodford stood outside the Cardinals’ clubhouse when Marmol came to find him. Marmol put his hands apart at about 15 inches.

He was celebrating the break on Woodford’s slider.

It got three swings and misses, seven foul balls, and only two balls in play.

The slider was essential to the at-bat that ended with the popup. Woodford again fell behind, 2-0, and with a runner at second base, Stanton had a swing at snapping the scoreless game. Woodford regained a grip on the count when Stanton whiffed on a slider. He fouled off two more sliders, running the count 2-2. Woodford tried a four-seam fastball up to see if the former NL MVP chased it. He did not. But the fullcount sinker he did — and flew out. The next batter, former AL MVP Josh Donaldson, hit a line drive to center that minor-leaguer Mike Antico lunged to catch and end Woodford’s afternoon.

He allowed three hits, struck out one, and walked one.

Six of his 12 outs came on the ground, eight didn’t leave the infield.

He caught a fly ball. “Broke some bats,” he said. And definitely left an impression.