Change of plans for Monday: Wainwright is going to be Cardinals’ starting pitcher

A couple cortisone shots, some successful spins through the bullpen, and a Wrigley Field rain delay have all conspired to put the St. Louis Cardinals back in a place they would have assumed was likely at the start of the season but seemed all but impossible two weeks ago – Adam Wainwright is set to take the mound as their starting pitcher on Monday to open the series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.

Wainwright was placed on the injured list with a right shoulder strain following a dismal start in Miami on July 4. At the time, both he and manager Oliver Marmol confessed to a lingering soreness and tightness that had robbed his pitches of late life and left him floundering in his chase for 200 wins.

Now, with Dakota Hudson pressed into service on Saturday and very few options available in the system, what started as a planned live batting practice session has instead become live action. Wainwright will be asked to get as many outs as he can from roughly 65 pitches, and the team will piece together an outing behind him from there.

“The whole time, he didn’t want to throw live or go on a rehab assignment or anything,” Marmol said. “Our inability to get outs yesterday in the ‘pen and the rain delay shortened [Drew] VerHagen’s ability to go back out, forced us to use [Hudson] for two innings and put us in a little bit of a pinch needing innings on Monday.”

“He feels good,” he added, “and this is the best he’s felt all year. So let’s see it.”

What the Cardinals saw earlier could only have been cause for concern. He did not complete four innings in any of his three most recent appearances and has posted a 7.66 earned run average over his 11 starts. After being delayed by a strained groin suffered in the weight room at the end of the World Baseball Classic, Wainwright returned, lacking his expected snap and finish on his pitches.

A breaking ball that ought to dive on a hitter would instead roll. A fastball that shows late life at 88 miles per hour was floating in at 86. To pitch with guile, Wainwright must be able to trust his movement. Without it, he was not competitive.

Now, partially out of dire need, he must be able to compete.

“I’ve been trying to prove every day that I’m healthy, but naturally not forcing anything to happen,” said Wainwright, who estimated that his return in Arizona became a realistic possibility over the last seven to 10 days.

“The questions from everybody right away was, what do you need out of this before you come back? And I said I’m not coming back if I’m featuring the same stuff, and I’m going through the same problems and things,” Wainwright said. “ I will not come back for that, because it’s not fair to the team. That said, my only ask is that when I am healthy, don’t slow play me, because I’m running out of time.”

That time expires at the end of this season, which Wainwright has said will be the last of his career. With the Cardinals drifting out of contention and the postseason barely a realistic consideration, the weeks remaining in the regular season are the weeks he has left.

On Friday, he sat in the visitors’ dugout at the Friendly Confines, reminiscing about his favorite moments in a long career as an unpopular visitor. The previous day, he’d taken his standard “old man walk” around the park, snapping photos from unfamiliar viewpoints and getting a new perspective on a place he’d seen many times before.

And then, unbeknownst to reporters, he followed that conversation with a surreptitious tune up in the covered right field bullpen, turning in the equivalent of three innings’ work away from prying eyes. That, it turned out, was his final checkpoint on the road back to the roster.

“I’m getting paid to contribute,” Wainwright said. “I’m getting paid to be a Cardinals player, not a Cardinals cheerleader. So I’d like the opportunity to go out and pitch, and carry our team deep into games like I have in the past.

“I was not able to this year. Five and two thirds, six innings, I’ve still really got my eyes on nine. That’s who I still want to be, that’s what I’m still trying to attain every time I take the ball. Hopefully I can start doing that.”