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WASHINGTON — With the Cardinals’ team hotel close to where he lived in Pentagon City while pitching for the Nationals, Erick Fedde’s first trip back to D.C. as a visitor felt familiar, from where he walked to the route he took the ballpark, not to mention the mound awaiting him.

So much was the same until an ending unlike any other.

The kind of game Fedde imagined someday pitching for the team that drafted him at the ballpark it called home in front of the fans cheering for the local club, he finally did – just for the opponents. At the ballpark where he made his big-league debut, Fedde authored the first complete game shutout of his professional career and first for the Cardinals since August 2022. Fedde’s nine scoreless innings in a 10-0 victory Friday night gave him only the third complete game shutout in the majors this season.

“One you envision for years when you’re playing here and then to eventually do it on the field but as the opponent – it’s pretty crazy,� Fedde said late Friday night. “There’s always something about when somebody – I wouldn’t say gives up on you – but lets you go (and) showing them you can be better.�

Fedde’s gem was the Cardinals’ sixth consecutive win, vaulting them to a winning record (20-19) for the first time since early April and moving them within two games of the division-leading Cubs.

The Cardinals backed Fedde with an offense that mixed 11 hits with eight walks and three wild pitches. Every spot in the order had at least one at-bat with a runner in scoring position, and the Cardinals scored three runs and set nine batters to the plate in the eighth inning with only one hit in the inning. Eight different spots in the lineup scored, and Jordan Walker did not have a hit but scored twice. Designated hitter Ivan Herrera returned to the lineup after a month absence due to a left knee injury and doubled to go with his two RBIs. Herrera called it “the most fun game I’ve played in this year.� He offered a few examples before settling on the biggest one.

“I’ve never seen a complete game before,� Herrera said.

Fedde had never pitched one, not as a pro.

And no wonder, since in his career they’ve become baseball’s Bigfoot.

So much had to go right for Fedde (3-3) to complete the game – from the size of the Cardinals’ lead to, most importantly, the efficiency of his innings and effectiveness of his cutter. The last complete game pitched by a Cardinals’ starter was in August 2022 by Jordan Montgomery at Wrigley Field. The only run of support Montgomery received was a solo homer by Albert Pujols. (Home run No. 693, to be precise.) Fedde’s most recent complete game shutout came in college for UNLV, and he speculated that he threw 140 pitches to get it.

“I’ve been searching for it since,� Fedde said. “Didn’t have any in Korea. Didn’t have prior. It’s an awesome feeling.�

The 18th overall pick in the 2014 draft, Fedde debuted with the Nationals in 2017. He spent six years with Washington jostling between relief and rotation. He left D.C. to pursue an opportunity in Korea’s professional league, and he returns from there reinvented and reignited by leading the KBO in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. In 54 games and 45 previous starts at Nationals Park, Fedde was 9-19 with a 5.59 ERA and a need of reinvention. He had pitched six innings in a start at National Park twice before reaching six innings Friday – and then just kept going. A double play erased a leadoff single in the sixth inning. Two of Fedde’s eight strikeouts ended the seventh inning.

That was about the time he started thinking his first shutout was possible.

“I was cruising right along,� Fedde said. “I was thinking I want it. Just trying to stay focused on the next pitch, one at a time, because I know if you get ahead of yourself anything can happen. The game reminds you quickly. You can have seven shutout and then give up four straight hits and you’re out of the game. Trying to stay focused one at the time.�

Three of the first four hits Fedde allowed came from leadoff hitter CJ Abrams. He tagged a double to open the first inning, and no other National player got as far as second base against Fedde.

“After that,� catcher Pedro Pages said, “it was pretty much dead.�

Fedde got two groundouts to unplug the first inning. After Abrams’ double, Fedde retired 15 of the next 17 batters, and he did so with resolute efficiency. It took Nationals starter Mitchell Parker 70 pitches to get through 16 batters and three innings. Fedde got six outs from seven batters on his first 22 pitches. In the time between starts, Fedde felt he found mechanics that betrayed him in recent outings. He walked five in his most recent outing, 21 in his 37 2/3 innings so far this season.

Fedde described how his cut fastball was an emphasis over the past week. As he adjusted his mechanics to get more drive from his legs and better extension he was able to reconnect with the shape and behavior of pitches that felt like his walk Friday or his route to the ballpark – familiar.

“We all know what our perfect self looks like,� Fedde said. “We’ve seen it. We have those games. But you know when it’s not right. It’s just been kind of searching for it. Today, it really felt like every pitch had the right shape.�

Fedde got ahead with his first pitch on 15 of 31 batters. When he fell behind he had the stuff to claw back into the count, Pages said. A few times, Fedde started to shake off the pitch called by Pages only to get a fist pump or a nod from Pages and, with it, confidence in the pitch, both he and his catcher described. The right-hander had more called strikes (20) and swinging strikes (10) combined than he had balls in play (23). Of his 27 outs, 21 came on the ground or from a strikeout.

The Cardinals led by six runs when Fedde struck out back-to-back batters to get the game into the eighth with his pitch count right around 80.

He then had to spectate for an extended stretch.

The Cardinals sent nine batters to the plate in the top of the eighth, scored three runs, and did all of that with only one hit. Washington reliever Lucas Sims pitched his way into being released late Friday night with a hit batter and four walks. Masyn Winn had an RBI single for the innings only hit, and yet the Cardinals had six baserunners.

“I felt like our guys, one through nine, they made you come in the zone,� manager Oliver Marmol said. “They didn’t chase anybody around today. Starter had 90-plus pitches through four. They didn’t expand. They battled every single pitch and it showed.�

The inning lingered for so long that Fedde ducked into a batting age near the visitors’ dugout to stay warm, adding throws to his arm without logging outs for his line.

He retired all three batters he faced in the eighth with help from a snazzy play from Nolan Arenado at third base. It took Fedde 12 pitches to do so, leaving him with fewer than 100 as the ninth inning loomed. The Cardinals’ bullpen remained quiet.

Although so much of his return to Washington had the comforts of home, Fedde did go a few places he never had before. Fedde had never stepped foot in the visitors’ clubhouse at Nationals Park. Fedde had no reason to be in the visitors’ bullpen before he warmed up there ahead of Friday night’s game. And, with the 10-run lead, he threw a pitch in the ninth inning for only the second time in his career.

James Wood roped Fedde’s seventh pitch of the inning for a single.

The Cardinals’ bullpen started to stir.

“I was like, ‘They’re not taking him out of this game,’� said Pages, who doubled, scored twice, and reached base three times. “Even in the ninth, I saw someone warming, and I was like, ‘They’re not taking him out of this game.’ He’s doing this.�

A quick double play and Fedde was back on track.

The cutter he spent the week working to sharpen got a popup for the final out, and for the first time in his career a game he started ended with him walking off the mound and into the arms of his catcher.

At his former home, Fedde went new places.

“Once you see that he’s rolling, you let him do this thing,� Marmol said. “And stay out of the way.�