ST. LOUIS _ One way to measure a game that Adam Wainwright brought with him to the Cardinals from his time as a young Braves prospect was a tip from one of the Cy Young-winning starters there about the relation between pitch count and innings.
If a pitcher can leave an inning with the first digit of his pitch count the same as the inning, that pitcher is doing something right.
It takes 20 pitches to get through two? Good beginning.
It takes 80 to get into the ninth? Goodness, hello shutout.
Cincinnati starter Luis Castillo carved through the Cardinals on Friday for such a gem that he was right on that mark to pull off something novel for his career and recently rare for the Reds. Castillo needed 88 pitches to into the eighth inning. He had not yet reached 100 by the time the ninth inning started, and that allowed him to plunge on for the complete-game, 3-1 victory against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium.
The complete game was Castillo's first of his career, and it was the first by a Reds starter since May 2017.
The last complete game by a Cardinal was during their last homestand.
Wainwright threw it.
Opposite Castillo (2-5), Wainwright (4-1) found a way to make the most of what he had for a quality start. He allowed three runs and worked his way around eight hits, relying a lot on his curveball and being judicious with his cutter. Joey Votto greeted the cutter with a two-run homer in the first inning for the game's first runs, and the Reds would add a run later against Wainwright on Eugenio Suarez's RBI double.
Wainwright has five quality starts in seven games this season.
Castillo's record is more an indictment on the Reds' offense than his pitching, and he brought a sub-3.50 ERA into the game and chiseled it down from there.
The one run the Cardinals got on Castillo scored on a groundout.
They managed two hits against the right-hander.
One was a double down the third-base line, and the other was a skip single pulled to right field. Castillo walked Paul Goldschmidt in the ninth inning. He had retired 13 consecutive before the walk.
