Can Adam Wainwright defy Father Time again? The St. Louis Cardinals hope so
Adam Wainwright was determined in his quest to reclaim his form after the 2018 season, so he decided to broaden his search for answers.
He ended up looking in the same place that countless others have gone to figure out why they’re losing their hair or, perhaps, why they don’t like the taste of cilantro.
He decided to invest in a commercial genetics testing service.
“We did 23andMe and plugged those results into some other things,” Wainwright explained Sunday after his first spring training start. “Learn how to eat different, learn how to work different, learn how to run different, learn how to do everything different based off my genetics. Trying to listen to my body a lot more than I used to.”
The Cardinals suggested the service to Wainwright because of the universality of its results. He could take the information to any number of other services to dig up more specialized information concerning the best way to maintain his body.
That body will turn 39 years old before the end of the season and achieved precisely the desired renaissance in 2019. Pitching pain free for the first time in years, Wainwright made 31 starts and won 14 games for the NL Central champs, including nine wins and a 2.56 ERA at Busch Stadium.
He scoffed at suggestions of looming retirement down the stretch, and has arrived in camp as one of the three pitchers most firmly ensconced in the starting rotation of a Cardinals team that will require outstanding pitching if they are to repeat last year’s successes.
“Health-wise, just gotta stay where I’m at,” Wainwright said. “Keep working hard and keep with my regimen that’s proven to work between starts. After starts, I got a good routine going, so just keep doing that.”
“I have not had that conversation with him (about retirement),” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said. “He just loves the game. He’s a very present guy. I think what it means to Adam is he’s ready to compete for us to win and him to have a good season.”
Wainwright no longer relies on ‘stuff’
At 38-turning-39, Wainwright is no longer a pitcher who relies on “stuff.” Trademark devastating curveball aside, none of his individual pitches provides a wow factor that can shock batters where they stand and allow Wainwright to power through outings.
Instead he relies on the trade’s more artisan tools; precision in location, intelligence in pitch selection, and a careful deployment of the right delivery at the right time.
When Tim Tebow won the Heisman Trophy as the Florida Gators’ quarterback in 2007, Wainwright had already closed out a World Series championship. On Sunday, chasing his second career on the diamond, Tebow was the starting left fielder for the New York Mets and drew a walk from Wainwright, helped in part by a 3-2 curveball Wainwright knew would bring him to his pitch ceiling for the day.
“I think I told Jack (Flaherty) or somebody the other day I was gonna throw four curveballs and no more,” Wainwright said with a smile. “And that was my fourth one.”
Former Cardinal Michael Wacha, now with the Mets, had a text message ready and waiting for Wainwright when he reached the clubhouse. Wacha ragged on the pitcher whom he once seemed destined to replace; Wainwright was just trying to finish his work and polish up the strategic deployment on which he relies.
Asked how far he could’ve gotten in his career if he relied only on his natural abilities, Wainwright said, “especially with my stuff, not very far.”
“I can spin it OK. Plenty of people have had way better stuff. A lot of mind games go into, a lot of mental strength and tools that (Chris Carpenter) and a lot of guys taught me over the years.”
How Wainwright balances life with baseball
To watch Wainwright work through spring training is to see a whole person balancing his life rather than merely an athlete priming the pump for a year on the grind. Last year, he was in camp as his wife was working to finalize the adoption of the couple’s fifth child and first son. This year, his boy, Caleb Adam, rode on his dad’s shoulders as he walked around the clubhouse on Caleb’s first birthday.
Wainwright was also briefly slowed during camp with some soreness that set in after a minor auto accident. He showed up to work the next day shaking it off, just countless others have done in far less visible career fields. That comes with perspective and the conviction that Wainwright the ballplayer is only a fragment of Wainwright in total.
“Before, I might have been so focused that sometimes I even forget to have fun out there,” Wainwright said. “Today, even on some of the takes, I kind of gave a little grin because I made the exact pitch I wanted to, and I took it, I was kind of like, ‘That was a great take.’
“I love baseball for that. Guys have certain approaches, think you’ve played the perfect chess play, and they just kind of take it, might be for a different reason than you think and you might have done something for a different reason they think. I just love all that.”
The improvements which Wainwright benefited from thanks to his genetics test would’ve been proof enough of its efficacy, but the raw results were apparently dead on.
“(My report) came back and said, ‘Probably a good athlete, probably good at throwing stuff,’” he said with a smile. “I mean, in some other way, and I was like, ‘in the wild world of sports ...’
“They were right.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2020 at 12:07 PM.
