Adam Wainwright tosses 7 scoreless innings as Cardinals pound Pirates

Where the Pittsburgh Pirates finally cut ties with Gregory Polanco in favor of a youth movement, the St. Louis Cardinals are pinning their playoff hopes on a pitcher who is two days shy of his 40th birthday.

Adam Wainwright isn’t just ageless, he keeps the Pirates scoreless.

For the third time this month, the Cardinals right-hander didn’t allow a run against the Pirates. Wainwright pitched seven scoreless innings in a 13-0 win Saturday before 20,043 on a fireworks night at PNC Park.

Dating to his June 26 start, Wainwright has thrown 26 consecutive scoreless innings over four games against the Pirates. That’s one-third of an inning shy of the scoreless streak Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell had for the Cardinals against the Pirates in 1952-53, although Wainwright’s performance also left a bad taste in their mouths.

Wainwright said he was “enjoying my last hurrah as a 30-something-year-old.”

“I’m really trying to take it pitch to pitch and inning to inning and not think about the whole bulk of it,” Wainwright said. “As soon as you start thinking you own somebody, they put a crooked number on you really quick.”

Wainwright (13-7) struck out five while allowing three hits and one walk on 93 pitches. By comparison, six Pirates — including infielder Wilmer Difo — combined to throw 222 pitches. That’s more than Wainwright threw (194) in his previous two starts against the Pirates, two-hit shutouts on Aug. 11 and Aug. 22.

It was a new low for the Pirates (47-83), who were shut out for the 13th time this season. Four of those have come against the Cardinals, including three in August with Wainwright on the mound.

“Some of it’s crazy. That guy, he’s just something else. Every time he’s faced us, he’s been locating incredibly, he’s changed speeds, he’s stayed out of the middle of the plate, but also stayed in the zone,” said Pirates lefty Steven Brault (0-3), who allowed seven runs on eight hits and two walks in only three innings. “That’s a veteran pitcher right there making real veteran moves. He’s always been really good, but what he’s doing now I think is really impressive. Obviously, it would be nice to bang him around a little bit, but he had our number. My hat’s off to him.”

The Pirates released Polanco, their longest-tenured player, just hours before first pitch and promised to give opportunities to young players in right field. They started Michael Chavis in right field, but he left in the fifth inning with right elbow discomfort after landing on it while diving for a line drive. Cole Tucker, recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis, replaced Chavis in right but later switched to shortstop. Ben Gamel, who started in left field, finished the game in right.

Shelton dismissed any notion that Polanco’s release had an impact on the way the Pirates played.

“I think it was just the fact that the Cardinals came out and played really well tonight, and we didn’t play very well,” Shelton said. “I don’t think that had any affect at all on it.”

Wainwright retired the first 12 batters he faced — throwing 34 of his first 46 pitches for strikes — before Colin Moran broke up the perfect game with a bloop single to shallow left-center to start the fifth inning.

The Cardinals (66-62) got their scoring started in the second inning, on Edmundo Sosa’s two-run triple to the North Side Notch in left-center for a 2-0 lead. Sosa went 4 for 6 with five RBIs and three runs scored, joined by Tommy Edman as one of two Cardinals with a four-hit game as they finished with 18 hits.

Paul Goldschmidt’s RBI single to right gave the Cardinals a 3-0 lead in the third. Tyler O’Neill and Nolan Arenado followed with singles to load the bases, but Brault made a sliding stop on Molina’s grounder down the first-base line and threw to catcher Michael Perez to force out Goldschmidt at the plate for an out. Perez fired the ball to first base to try to double off Molina, but Colin Moran’s foot was off the bag.

Sosa hit a bases-clearing triple over the outstretched glove of Chavis for a 6-0 lead. The Pirates intentionally walked Harrison Bader, only for Wainwright to single through the middle to score Sosa and make it 7-0. The Cardinals added another run on a Goldschmidt RBI double off lefty reliever Anthony Banda in the sixth for an 8-0 lead. Luis Oviedo got into trouble in the seventh, not covering first in time on a bases-loaded grounder by Edman that allowed Sosa to score to make it 9-0 and then walking Goldschmidt to score Bader for a 10-0 deficit. The Cardinals added three more runs in the eighth against lefty Sam Howard, who was activated from the injured list, when Dylan Carlson hit a two-run homer that bounced off the glove of left fielder Anthony Alford, and Lars Nootbaar doubled to score Sosa.

Brault said the younger Pirates learned a lot from Polanco, the lone holdover from their last postseason teams, on how to grind through struggles during a long season.

“Gregory meant a lot. Really sad to see him go, honestly,” Brault said. “He’s one of my favorite guys I’ve ever played with. He’s an amazing guy. … I’m going to miss him a lot. I wish the best for him in the future.”