It's Fundamentally, Objectively, Statistically Remarkable That 41-Year Old Adam Wainwright Won His 200th Game Last Night
Castellani blogged it last night but I wanted to circle back with some stats and data about how insanely bad Adam Wainwright's been leading up to his 200th win.
I hate brain dead moran Cardinals fans as much as anyone, but for a brief moment I need to acknowledge Adam Wainwright's significant career achievement.
Congratulations Adam.
Now, you might be new to this story line which is exactly what I'm hoping for. You see Wainwright could have retired with Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols last year, but the Cardinals were willing to give him $17.5M for another season. It kind of made sense, albeit expensive sense. He only needed 5 wins to reach 200 career and was coming off back-to-back objectively solid seasons at 39/40 years old. The wheels would fall off but almost 400 good innings said the decline would be delayed.
It wasn't.
The 2023 game log’s robust. I'll walk you through it but here's the full body:
You'll notice two quick wins in May after missing April. He got rocked by Detroit in his first start. Roughed up again in Boston and honestly wasn't that much better against LA and certainly not the Dodgers. But on May 23rd, Adam Wainwright had 197 wins.
The next 15 starts to get to 198 were downright AWFUL. 
I'll interpret:
- 15 starts
- 1-11 record, 2-13 team record
- Barry Bonds on steroids average slash line against (.371/.428/.619)
- Nearly 1 earned run per inning
- About 8 hits surrendered per start
- Less than 4.2 innings per start
- 13 of 15 times he gave up more hits than innings pitched
- Basically the worst pitcher in baseball and he just kept doing it
By all measures, MEAT:
He's quite literally dead last in several notable categories that quantify starting pitcher success. The only conclusion from this is that Adam Wainwright should not be in the big leagues right now.
Even worse is his team.
The Cardinals are atrocious and played some of their worst in August going 11-16 and that includes a couple of decent series wins against the Padres and Rays. Even so, the Redbirds are fuckin AWFUL and Wainwright needing 2 more wins before next year's spring training seemed impossible.
A week ago he was taking the mound against Baltimore with 198.
The 1st place Baltimore Orioles folks. The exact lineup that murders Adam Wainwright.
Naturally he won
45 gamescore with a W on the road against one of MLB's best teams is some good shit. You don't go 1-11 over the heart of the season without some bad luck.
Fast forward to tonight. Week later. 1st place Milwaukee Brewers, SCORCHING hot and beating everyone.
And naturally Wainwright throws 7 scoreless
Back-to-back remarkable efforts from a guy who honestly probably just wants to go fishing with his 10 kids. He probably just wants to play fantasy football with his brother-in-law and keep a shed full of power tools on rich, fertile land seeded with American values. The last thing Adam Wainwright wants to do is hang more losses on arguably the worst Cardinals team of my lifetime, all things considered.
But alas baseball prevails. Wainwright gets to 200 with his 1% statcast stuff and the Cardinals pitching staff can find some closure going into the offseason. Although knowing (of) Wainwright, I can easily see him coming back in May after getting bored in retirement. Unless he's getting a vasectomy on his UCL then I'm not ruling anything out. That big bastard is always gonna want the ball.
Anyways congrats to a legend. Much better than his career numbers which is something I'll pick Klemmer's brain about for Wednesday's show. Follow along here