The Cardinals have have decided to bring longtime St. Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright back for the 2019 season.
Pitcher Adam Wainwright has enjoyed a nice 14-year career in Major League Baseball, playing his entire career to this point with the St. Louis Cardinals. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few hardships along the way.
Though Wainwright, 37, has been an ace-type pitcher for the Cardinals, injuries have eaten up a few of his seasons — most recently, his 2018 season.
But the Cardinals have officially signed Wainwright to a one-year contract extension through 2019, proving that both the organization and Wainwright himself want his career in St. Louis to end on a positive note.
“Adam represents everything we think of when asked to describe a winning player, and a winning teammate,” Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said in a statement, according to ESPN.com. “His value to our team stretches far beyond the box score, and he showed by season’s end that he is still ready and able to compete.”
Wainwright was limited to just eight starts in 2018 thanks to elbow and hamstring problems, finishing with a 2-4 record and a 4.46 ERA.
Prior to that, Wainwright was a three-time All-Star who led the National League in wins in 2009 and 2013. He has even won a pair of Gold Gloves, as well as a Silver Slugger award.
But arguably one of the biggest achievements of Wainwright’s career came at the tail end of his rookie season in 2006.
Tabbed as the Cardinals’ closer for the 2006 postseason, the 25-year-old Wainwright recorded the final outs of both the NLCS and the World Series, both via three-pitch strikeout, as St. Louis won its first championship in 24 years.
In 2006 and every year since then, Wainwright has been a central figure and a fan favorite of the St. Louis baseball scene.
Whether or not 2019 is Wainwright’s final season with the Cardinals, or in Major League Baseball for that matter, he will get a chance to prove that he still has what it takes to be a top-of-the-rotation pitcher.