Cardinals' veteran pitcher Adam Wainwright stymies Pirates again

Two months shy of his 40th birthday, it’s unclear what Adam Wainwright does best.

Is it his defiance of the normal aging process for athletes?

Or is it his continuing ability to baffle the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Wainwright put both on display Saturday, throwing 102 pitches in the St. Louis Cardinals’ 3-1 victory against the Pirates (28-47) at Busch Stadium. The victory stopped the Cardinals’ five-game losing streak, but they are only 37-40 for the season.

Wainwright, who hasn’t lost to the Pirates in St. Louis since 2012, struck out eight — that makes 1,922 in 16 seasons — and allowed only six hits while pitching into the seventh inning. After 2,262 innings, his win-loss record sits at 173-103 while his ERA is a tidy 3.40.

J.T. Brubaker, the Pirates’ 27-year-old starting and losing pitcher, tried to treat the game as just one of many, but he knows that will be impossible as he reflects on it.

“Once gametime happens and lights come on,” said Brubaker, whose record fell to 4-7, “he’s just another baseball player. But I’m sure once I go back and rewatch the game, it will be ‘Man, I shared a mound with Wainwright.’ (He) has a World Series ring (2006). He’s done almost everything he can in this game.”

Count Derek Shelton among the impressed.

“It’s a credit to him and how he takes care of himself,” the Pirates manager said. “We saw the good breaking ball. He was able to execute it, ahead in the count, behind in the count. That’s what gave us a little bit of fits.

“He executed it in the zone. He executed it for chase. He did a nice job keeping us off balance.”

The Pirates’ only run was Gregory Polanco’s eighth home run of the season in the fourth inning. It was Polanco’s hardest hit all season, leaving his bat at 112.2 mph.

“He’s a Hall of Famer,” Colin Moran said of Wainwright.

“He can cut it. He can throw a good changeup like today,” added Moran, who batted second in the order and had a single and double while Shelton gave the day off from the starting lineup to Ke’Bryan Hayes. “Cutter, changeup, two-seam, and then he’s got that really good curveball and he locates very well. He tends to not give you too much to hit.”

No team in baseball has lost more decisions to Wainwright than the Pirates. He has defeated Pittsburgh and the Milwaukee Brewers 18 times each.

Yet, the Pirates appeared on the brink of solving Wainwright when Moran and Bryan Reynolds singled to start the sixth inning. With runners on first and second and no outs, Wainwright struck out Polanco and Phillip Evans and retired Michael Perez on a fly ball to center field. Evans struck out in all three at-bats against Wainwright.

Brubaker lasted six innings, but he walked two batters, which is slightly out of character for him after allowing zero or no walks in nine of his previous 13 starts. His gravest mistakes were pitches that ended up as solo home runs to Paul DeJong in the second inning and Paul Goldschmidt in the fifth.

“DeJong got me with a hanger. Goldy got me with a four-seam that was up and away that he kind of ambushed,” Brubaker said. “I wasn’t expecting it. It wasn’t like I was trying to lay a fastball in there, either.”

Shelton said Brubaker was not at his best, but he thought surviving six innings was to be applauded.

“He had to battle through the entire game,” Shelton said. “The fact that he was able to give us six and execute pitches is another sign that this guy is going to be a good major league starter.”

Goldschmidt’s blast landed 470 feet from home plate and is listed as the fourth-longest home run at Busch Stadium. He is also the only right-handed batter to hit a ball out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River.

Wainwright left after giving up a leadoff single to Erik Gonzalez in the seventh. Relief pitcher Genesis Cabrera entered the game and forced Hayes, pinch hitting for first time in his career, to hit into a forceout. Kevin Newman, also pinch hitting, grounded into a double play to end the inning.

In the eighth, Moran’s double was wasted when Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado retired Polanco by making an over-the-shoulder catch on a fly ball along the left-field line.

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