With his final season winding down, Adam Wainwright was stuck on 198 wins for nearly three months, and then in a span of seven days, he found that old form and reached a major milestone.
Wainwright earned his 200th win, pitching seven innings of four-hit ball in a vintage performance as the St Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 1-0 on Monday night.
“For at least a night I was a real pitcher out there, the guy that I want to be,” said Wainwright, who plans to retire after the season. “Seven innings, shutout, a couple of hits, got through a couple of tough Abs [at-bats] out there and made adjustments, worked in and out, up and down.”
Photo: Jeff Curry-USA Today
It was the longest outing this season for the 42-year-old Wainwright (5-11), who struck out three and walked two. He has won consecutive starts, both against first-place teams, after going 0-10 with a 10.72 earned run average over his previous 11 games between June 24 and Sept. 7.
“That’s as good as we’ve seen,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “If you talked to him right before the game, and if he’s being really honest, he was being held up by duct tape before the game started, and for him to go out there and do what he did is highly impressive.”
The right-hander became the 38th pitcher in National League (NL) history to reach 200 wins, and the 24th major leaguer to achieve the milestone since 2000.
Wainwright said the feeling was comparable to his emotions while closing out the 2006 World Series as a rookie reliever.
“Tonight, for me, this is tied for first,” he said.
Willson Contreras homered off Freddy Peralta (12-9) in the fourth. Milwaukee lost its second straight game, and its magic number to clinch the NL Central remained at seven. The Brewers hold a six-game lead over the Chicago Cubs with 12 to play.
Contreras was especially emotional about Wainwright once the game ended.
“I know he’s been battling a lot of stuff and he’s been pitching the best that he can this year,” Contreras said. “And I’m glad that he was able to reach out to reach the 200 mark on wins, and I’m glad that I was back behind the plate for him.”
John King induced a double play in the eighth and Ryan Helsley worked one and one-third of an innings for his 12th save in 16 opportunities.
Wainwright got Carlos Santana to ground into a pair of double plays and left to a standing ovation from the crowd of 33,176 after pitching around a leadoff single by Mark Canha in the seventh.
“I didn’t want to tip my hat or anything, because I didn’t know if I was done, but I did feel that crowd and it was a special walk off,” Wainwright said.
Wainwright’s first strikeout of the game, against Rowdy Tellez, was the 2,200th of his career. His last two punchouts moved him past David Wells for 65th on the all-time list.
Contreras lined a sinker from Peralta just inside the left-field foul pole for his 20th home run of the season.
Peralta gave up four hits in six innings and struck out six.
“I didn’t have my best stuff today, but it worked,” he said.
Sal Frelick had two singles for the Brewers and robbed Tommy Edman of an extra-base hit with a running catch in deep center field. Frelick caught the ball on a full sprint and held on after crashing into the wall.
“We didn’t do a very good job offensively,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said.
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