With no offense meant to that Pirates lineup – OK, perhaps a little offense meant — the toughest situation Adam Wainwright found himself in Thursday came long before Pittsburgh leadoff man Daniel Vogelbach stepped into the Busch Stadium batter’s on Thursday’s opening day.
The Cardinals’ 40-year-old right-hander arrived around 11 a.m. in downtown St. Louis, where he realized the pregame traffic that had not snarled his route to the ballpark for the home-opener since before the COVID-19 pandemic was very much back.
“It was totally jammed,” Wainwright said Thursday night, after he had turned his seventh opening-day start into a pitching clinic against Pittsburgh, slicing and dicing the Pirates for six scoreless innings that could have become at least seven, and maybe eight.