Adam

Wainwright

The 42-year-old got one final plate appearance in Sunday’s game — going down on strikes against Alan Busenitz in the eighth inning. Wainwright concludes an outstanding big league career with a 200-128 record, 3.53 ERA, 1.24 WHIP and a 2,202/736 K/BB ratio across 2668 1/3 innings over 18 seasons with the Cardinals. He also recorded three saves. Best of luck to Wainwright in the next chapter of his life.

That means that the 42-year-old hurler will go out on an epic high note — recording his 200th victory and hurling seven scoreless frames against the Brewers in what will be his final major league start. Wainwright finishes the disappointing season with a 5-11 record, 7.40 ERA, 1.90 WHIP and a 55/41 K/BB ratio across 101 innings in his 21 starts. He will remain with the team and will have batting gloves in his locker — with the possibility that the Cardinals could find him one final at-bat over the final week of the season.

After finally recording his 200th career victory on Monday night, the Cardinals will give the 42-year-old hurler a bit of a breather. Marmol noted that if Wainwright does take the hill again this season, it will come in St. Louis in front of the hometown crowd. It’s possible he takes the mound one last time, or simply opts to go out on a brilliant high note.

With an 8.19 ERA this season and zero victories since mid-June, it just didn’t seem realistic at all 10 days ago that Wainwright would get the two wins he needed for 200, at least not unless the Cardinals tried to finesse it by putting him in winnable situations in relief. At is turned out, that was unnecessary. Wainwright allowed two runs over five innings to defeat the Orioles on Tuesday, and now he’s shut out the postseason-bound Brewers for seven, doing so without throwing a pitch harder than 87.6 mph. Ironic is that he owes the win to Willson Contreras, whose homer provided the only run of the game. Wainwright is scheduled to make two more starts, but we’ll see if those materialize.

Wainwright held the red-hot Orioles offense at bay until the fifth inning after allowing a leadoff walk followed by two singles and a fielder’s choice, which scored three runs. With the Cardinals holding a one-run lead, he was removed from the game as St. Louis attempted to give the veteran his best chance of collecting a win. It was the right move as the veteran won his first game since June 17 and now has 199 wins for his career. He’ll take a 7.95 ERA back home to face the Brewers on Monday.

Wainwright, a Georgia native who was drafted by the Braves, requested the start in Atlanta, even though he knew he was setting himself up to face the game’s best offense. He gave up a homer to Ronald Acuña Jr. on the very first pitch he threw, an 85-mph fastball with no movement, and it’s rather amazing that he lasted as long as he did in the loss. Wainwright has been stuck on 198 wins for 11 consecutive starts now. The Cardinals need to get creative and start using him as a reliever/bulk guy if he’s going to have a shot at 200 wins. Wainwright, though, might prefer to remain a traditional starter and just do his best.

The 42-year-old hurler pitched well his last time out against the Padres, but indicated afterwards that it was “one of the five worst times he’s felt on a mound” according to Cardinals’ skipper Oli Marmol. Instead of taking on the Pirates on Sunday, he’ll now have to tackle the vaunted Braves’ offense on Thursday instead. It goes without saying, but Wainwright should be avoided for fantasy purposes.

Wainwright was slated to take the ball on Sunday against the Pirates, but will instead be pushed back to take the ball at some point during next week’s road series in Atlanta. The 42-year-old right-hander remains stuck on 198 career wins heading into the final month of the regular season.

The 41-year-old right-hander walked three on the night while recording only one strikeout. The lone tally against him came on an RBI single by Matt Carpenter in his final inning of work. Wainwright got just four swings and misses on 93 pitches on the night, registering a CSW of 26 percent. He’ll attempt to further improve upon his nightmarish 8.10 ERA and 1.98 WHIP when he squares off against the Pirates at home on Sunday afternoon.

After pitching three perfect innings, the game got out of hand in the fifth inning for the 41-year-old right-hander. He allowed five batters to reach base before Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run homer to give the Pirates a six-run lead. He quickly allowed a double to Connor Joe and was removed from the game. After not getting a single swinging strike his last time out, he generated two in this outing. He takes a bloated 8.61 ERA to face the Padres at home on Monday.