Tim Benz: Cardinals vets feasting on Pirates an all too familiar scene

It felt like a turn-back-the-clock kind of weekend at PNC Park for the St. Louis Cardinals.

For the Pittsburgh Pirates, meanwhile, time continues to stand still and the calendar never advances to a better year.

Adam Wainwright spun a gem. Albert Pujols hit a pair of home runs. Paul Goldschmidt went nuts one night. And the Cardinals punked the Pirates for three straight games.

The more life changes on the North Shore, the more it stays the same.

The Cardinals won close, 5-3 on Friday and 5-4 on Saturday. The Cardinals won by blowout, 18-4 on Sunday.

The Sunday beatdown marked the second time (already) this year when the Pirates have allowed 18 or more runs in a game. Don’t be surprised if there are one or two more before this season is over.

It’s the seventh time Buccos pitching has yielded nine runs or more in a game.

Even though seating was only at 35% capacity (13,510) and the game was only streamed on Peacock, there were enough witnesses to see that it actually happened.

Pujols’ first home run Sunday was an absolute bomb. It went 425 feet and hit the rotunda in left field.

Off the bench and out of the yard! pic.twitter.com/nOALeoa1Uf

— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) May 22, 2022

We’ve seen that act before from Pujols in that building. Remember the one he hit in the rotunda off Jimmy Anderson in 2002?

Pujols’ second effort wasn’t half bad either. It went 403 feet, making the game 16-0.

Before Albert was behind the dish, he hit his 2nd homer of the day! pic.twitter.com/FVXaLWm262

— MLB (@MLB) May 22, 2022

OK, it was off of Josh VanMeter, who was pressed into pitching duty as a position player. But, hey, it counts. So Pujols now has four homers on the year. At PNC Park for his career, Pujols has 32. That’s the most of any visiting player. Anthony Rizzo (San Diego Padres, Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees) is second with 17. Only Minute Maid Park in Houston (33) has yielded more homers to Pujols than PNC Park has.

He has totaled 92 RBIs on the banks of the Allegheny, more than in any other road venue during his career. His batting average here is .373. His OPS is an ungodly 1.16.

“Sometimes you just get into a stadium where you’re seeing the ball well,” Pujols told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after the game.

“I can’t tell you what it is. This is one of my favorite stadiums, not just because I do well. I think it’s a beautiful stadium. I love coming here in the summer. Blue sky, the view of the city … it’s pretty awesome.”

Goldschmidt had a four-hit night on Saturday to boost his season average to .342.

Game Rewind: Goldy's two-bagger drove in ✌. #STLCards pic.twitter.com/7h7aJS9yCl

— Bally Sports Midwest (@BallySportsMW) May 22, 2022

Like Pujols, Goldschmidt has gaudy numbers against the Bucs. He’s hitting .313 lifetime with a .960 OPS with 18 home runs and 68 RBIs in 96 games against the Pirates.

Then there was Wainwright’s latest dismissal of the Pirates lineup. En route to a 5-3 Cards win on Friday, the veteran right-hander blanked the Pirates through six innings before Michael Chavis homered off of him in the seventh. That was the only run he’d allow before leaving the game.

That’s Wainwright’s 23rd victory of his career against the Pirates, more than any other opponent he has faced.

Since the start of 2019, the 40-year-old hurler is 10-0 against the Pirates. Over those 11 starts, he has given up just 14 earned runs in 78 innings for an ERA of 1.62.

Over the same period, his strikeout-to-walk total is 70-to-17 and he has allowed only four home runs.

Those numbers include six innings of shutout baseball on Opening Day this year, as the Cardinals blanked the Pirates 9-0. In four starts last year against the Pirates, Wainwright allowed only one earned run over 30 innings.

Pujols is 42, Wainwright 40 and Goldschmidt 34. So they can’t keep torturing the Pirates for much longer.

Can they?

At least this year, they can. The Cards are 5-1 against the Pirates already in 2022, with 13 games between the teams remaining. The last six games of the year are slated to be against the Cardinals, split between St. Louis and then Pittsburgh.

At 16-24, those games won’t be meaningful for the Pirates. They may be for the Cardinals who, at 23-18, are only 3½ games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the National League Central and are currently in a wild-card slot.

Anybody who might be battling the Cardinals for a postseason spot may want to keep that in mind as the final week of the season approaches.

Pirates fans should, too. At least in the case of Pujols, who has said he plans on retiring at the end of the year, it’s only fitting that his Hall of Fame-worthy MLB career could end in the two stadiums where he has dominated more than any others.

Yeah, I even feel comfortable throwing Angel Stadium of Anaheim into that mix. That’s where he called home for a decade between 2012-21. He tends to do a lot better here than he did out there, though.

That could be the case for Wainwright, too. And for longtime Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, who plans to hang ’em up after the 2022 campaign ends. Goldschmidt, though, has two more years remaining on his contract.

Wonderful.

I often wonder what guys of that caliber think when they come to Pittsburgh. That even in their advanced years, the Pirates are still going to be the Pirates. The low-hanging fruit that has always been so plentiful for them to pluck at PNC Park is still ripe and exists just as readily as it has for so many seasons.

While so much in baseball has changed in recent years as far as rules, trends and teams going through ups-and-downs, one constant that does remain is how continuously players of their caliber can count on padding their already accomplished resumes whenever they blow through this town.

While blowing out the often-overmatched opponent that plays here.