ST. LOUIS — Adam Wainwright has been stopping Cardinals losing streaks all season. On Friday night, when he stifled the Kansas City Royals, 4-2, he halted a team losing streak of three or more games for the third time. The 39-year-old is 87-45 after Cardinals losses in his career.
But there is no stopping Wainwright’s continued march into Cardinals’ pitching history. His 10th victory of the season gave him 11 double-figure win seasons as a Cardinal as he became only the third pitcher in club history to achieve that. The other two are National Baseball Hall of Famers: the late Bob Gibson had 14 and Jesse “Pop” Haines, who also had 11.
Wainwright (10-6), winner of three starts in succession himself, set down the Royals on three hits for the first five innings, after which the Cardinals had a 4-0 lead, largely due to the 18th home runs of the season clouted by Paul Goldschmidt in the first inning and Tyler O’Neill in the fourth.
Both drives, 403 feet by Goldschmidt and 410 feet by O’Neill, came off left-hander Mike Minor. O'Neill had a career-high four hits, missing a cycle by not having a triple but two singles instead.
Minor also was touched for a run-scoring single by Paul DeJong, ending a nothing-for-18 slide, in the second. DeJong drove in O’Neill, who had opened the inning with a single and had moved up on a walk to Yadier Molina.
Goldschmidt drove in his second run with a single off Minor in the fifth after Dylan Carlson had doubled. Later in the inning, O’Neill doubled for his third hit.
O’Neill has reached base in 14 of his past 18 plate appearances (11 hits, two walks, hit batsman).
The Royals tagged Wainwright a bit in the sixth when they scored twice. With one out, Carlos Santana singled to left and came home on Ryan O’Hearn’s triple to right center. Hunter Dozier singled to center to make it 4-2 and Emmanuel Rivera also singled. Wainwright then retired Jarrod Dyson on a liner to Harrison Bader in center and induced Cam Gallagher to ground to shortstop DeJong.
Wainwright, who allowed seven hits and struck out six, pitched seven innings, giving him at least that many innings in 12 of his 22 starts, including four in succession. All four have been Cardinals’ wins.
His first double-figure win season here came in 2007 when he won 14. Wainwright has won 20 games twice and 19 twice for the Cardinals and every full season that he has been in the rotation most of the season, he has won at least 10. He is 177-104 for his career.
His combination with Molina reached 295 starts, 11 shy of Red Faber and Ray Schalk of the 1914-26 Chicago White Sox. Wainwright figures to get 10 more starts this season and possibly 11.
Left-hander T.J. McFarland, who has moved ahead of veteran Andrew Miller in the Cardinals’ bullpen pecking order, retired the Royals in order in the eighth to gain his second "hold" as a Cardinal.
