ST. LOUIS — The start made history.
The finish made them a winner.
And one late milestone stroke made Wednesday all the more memorable.
Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina reset the major league record for most starts as a tandem with the first pitch against the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium and their 325th career together. What made them a winner was the work that followed. Staked to a lead by home runs from Nolan Arenado and Lars Nootbaar off Corbin Burnes, the reigning Cy Young Award winner, the Cardinals’ bullpen worked four scoreless innings to reward the battery with a 4-1 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 46,459.
The Cardinals’ final run of the evening, delivered in the bottom of the eighth, gave the evening additional gloss. Albert Pujols, in the lineup at designated hitter, doubled home the Cardinals’ fourth run of the evening for the 2,200th RBI of his career. He joined Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron as the only three players in history with that many runs batted in.
The win restored the Cardinals’ eight-game lead in the National League Central and with only two games remaining with the Brewers cleaved the magic number down to 12.
That countdown continues.
A count up that began a little more than five years ago reached what was once unsure — that two players, in their early 40s, would remain on the same team and together long enough to make 325 starts together. The number became a private quest for Wainwright and Molina, and a few people close to the catcher described this past week how sharing that major league record with Wainwright was part of what drove Molina to return this season at age 40 and return from injury in the middle of this season.
The Cardinals’ tandem, as close as brothers despite spending so much time 60 feet, 6 inches apart, broke a record held for generations by Detroit’s Mickey Lolich and Bill Freehan. With each start they put the unreachable further ahead, as no other active battery is within 200 of them, and third on the list is Molina and Jack Flaherty, at 69. Molina has three of the highest active totals.
For his third consecutive start, Wainwright (11-9) pitched five innings and nothing beyond. He yielded the mound and a two-run lead to the bullpen. Andre Pallante, Jordan Hicks, Giovanny Gallegos, and Ryan Helsley carved through the next four innings to keep Milwaukee from mustering a challenge to that lead and play spoiler to the evening.
Helsley struck out two in the ninth to secure his 17th save.
