ST. LOUIS — For several weeks, Cardinals right-hander Adam Wainwright has been saying that the team win total for the games in which he pitches to catcher Yadier Molina meant more to him than the total starts record the two probably will set later this season.
On Sunday night, before a national television audience observing, the Cardinals won for a record 203rd time with Wainwright and Molina as the starting battery. That eclipsed the 202 number established by Boston/Milwaukee lefthander Warren Spahn and catcher Del Crandall from 1949-63.
Not only did the Cardinals win, but the 40-year-old Wainwright and 39-year-old Molina combined on a two-way gem in a 15-6 Cardinals rout of the San Francisco Giants at Busch Stadium. And, in an homage to the old-timers, 42-year-old Albert Pujols made his big-league pitching debut in the ninth.
Pujols, throwing in the '50s and '60s, allowed a three-run homer to Giants pitcher Luis Gonzalez, who actually had been the left fielder, and a solo homer to Joey Bart.
Wainwright (4-3) limited the Giants to only one hit over the first five innings before being tagged for a two-run Joc Pederson homer in the sixth. And Molina, who had just two runs batted in for the season, doubled that total by hitting a two-run homer and a two-run single. As they started together, the two left together after six innings.
Paul Goldschmidt had a home run and two doubles and knocked in three runs and Pujols had two hits and two walks and scored two runs.
The final meeting between the teams this season was the Cardinals’ fourth win in seven games against the Giants, which could have some ramifications come playoff time for the two potential qualifiers.
San Francisco starter Carlos Rodon had struck out 53 men without allowing a home run, making him one of four starters since at least 1901 to accomplish that through the first six starts of the season. Goldschmidt put a quick end to that in the first inning.
After Tommy Edman opened with a single to right out of the reach of second baseman Wilmer Flores, Goldschmidt jumped on a low 96 mph four-seamer and launched it into Big Mac Land in left field. The Cardinals have homered in 11 consecutive games, the longest streak by any major league team this season, and Goldschmidt has reached base 22 games in succession.
These two runs were matched by two more driven in by Molina, whose single to center scored Juan Yepez, who had singled to right, and Pujols, who had doubled past third.
Pujols delivered again, singling to center in the third to score Goldschmidt, who had blooped a double to right. Pujols had entered the game nothing for his past 10.
Edmundo Sosa, who had a strong game at shortstop, too, made it 6-0 in the fourth with a single, his first of two hits, scoring Bader, who had stolen his eighth base without being thrown out. Goldschmidt then stroked his third extra-base hit of the night, doubling to chase home Sosa from first. It was 7-0 and Rodon, who entered with a 1.80 ERA, was gone after giving up 10 of the Cardinals’ 17 hits, six of which went for extra bases.
The Giants’ left-hander had given up just four hits in 29 at-bats to the Cardinals who were in the lineup on Sunday.
Reliever Zack Littell’s second pitch to Nolan Arenado wound up over the left-field wall for his eighth homer and a 9-0 Cardinals lead.
Molina walloped a 417-foot-drive into the left-center-field bleachers behind one of Pujols’ two walks to hike the Cardinals’ lead to 11-0 in the fifth. Molina snapped a tie with Hall of Famer Ted Simmons for ninth place on the Cardinals’ homer list at 173.
The homer was catcher Molina’s 327th hit in a Wainwright start, pulling him even for first with New York Yankees Hall of Fame catcher Bill Dickey’s 327 for pitcher Red Ruffing. Both of Molina’s homers this season have come off Littell and this one leaped off the bat at 107.8 mph, his hardest-hit ball since tracking began in 2015.
The Cardinals' backstops had combined for only eight RBIs this season, six of them by Andrew Knizner. But Knizner, relieving Molina, ran the total to six for the night by singling in two with the bases loaded in the sixth. Knizner added one to that total in the seventh when he was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded.
This two-run inning featured a pitching appearance by Gonzalez, who had pitched in college at New Mexico. Gonzalez was clocked as low as 42 mph as he posted 1 1/3 scoreless innings.
Wainwright, keeping his opponents off balance per custom, struck out five in the first 4 2/3 innings before he allowed his first hit, a line single to left in the fifth by Luis Gonzalez. He walked two in scoring win No. 188 in his career. The 311 starts in tandem left Wainwright and Molina six short of Spahn/Crandall for second place in that category and 13 behind first-place Mickey Lolich and the late Bill Freehan of the Detroit Tigers.
If Spahn and Crandall are any guide, Wainwright and Molina should have long, rich lives, not that they haven’t already. Spahn, who managed such Cardinals prospects as Simmons and 220-game winner Jerry Reuss at the Cardinals’ Tulsa Class AAA club from 1967-71, lived to be 82. Crandall lived to 91, dying this past May.
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