Wainwright will rejoin Molina in return to St. Louis Cardinals in 2022
The St. Louis Cardinals have officially secured their franchise pillars for one last season together.
Adam Wainwright, the right-hander who closed out a World Series as a rookie in 2006 and who celebrated his 40th birthday this year with one of his most dominant seasons, agreed to an extension for the 2022 season, the team announced Friday.
Wainwright previously announced via social media and confirmed to the News-Democrat his intent to play in 2022.
Making his desires clear, Wainwright said, “I don’t want to be anywhere else. Who am I kiddin’?”
With his new contract, Wainwright joins Yadier Molina, 39, who agreed to a one-year extension on Aug. 25. Molina has said he intends to retire at the end of next season.
Wainwright wasn’t quite ready to make the same commitment. “Several of my favorite athletes growing up retired three times,” he explained, “and I don’t want to retire three times.”
He did allow, however, that it’s very likely his family will have a dog by Christmas of 2022; he’s frequently said he’s promised his four daughters and son that they can get a family dog when he retires and is able to help around the house.
Wainwright conceded that he was comfortable early this season that he would be in a place physically to compete in 2022, but wanted to be sure his family would be comfortable with that decision.
His oldest daughter, who he described holding against his shoulder during the 2006 World Series parade, started high school this year. Bailey Wainwright has split time between St. Louis and her grandmother’s house in Georgia as she attends school in person, and her father wanted to wait to make sure the strain on the family wasn’t excessive.
As a pair, Wainwright and Molina have started 304 games. The two are only 20 starts shy of Detroit’s Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan for the all-time record number of games started by a battery.
“We were kids together in the big leagues, and now we’re old geezers together,” Wainwright said.
“I’m almost certainly riding off with him.”
Wainwright’s 17 victories this season are his most since 2014, when he won 20 games and finished third in voting for the National League Cy Young Award. His 206 ⅓ innings pitched and 3.05 earned run average are his most and lowest in a full season, respectively, since that year.
His importance on the mound exceeds only slightly his importance off the field, as the venerable Wainwright is a well-respected mentor who has helped to shepherd countless Cardinals through the organization over the course of his career.
He was named Thursday as the club’s starter for the upcoming National League Wild Card game, putting him in a position to have the helm for yet another do-or-die postseason showdown.
“That’s our guy,” outfielder Dylan Carlson said following the announcement of Wainwright’s playoff assignment. “When he goes out there, there’s that little extra edge that you get from him being out there. That competitive nature he’s got kind of trickles out to the whole team and helps us play with good momentum and kind of just gets the ball rolling.”
Wainwright spoke of the awe he feels in being a representative of multiple generations of Cardinals history. He recalled sitting next to Molina in the dugout over the weekend, noticing a fan that Wainwright estimated to be in his early 20s, holding a sign in support of the two of them.
The fan, Wainwright realized, would almost certainly not have any memories of Cardinal baseball without the two of them involved.
This story was originally published October 1, 2021 at 2:00 PM.
