St. Louis Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright to start in Game 4 of the NLCS against San Francisco Giants
St. Louis Cardinals’ Adam Wainwright will start the Game 4 of the National League Championship Series against the San Francisco Giants scheduled for Thursday, October 18. With 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven game series, the Cardinals hope Wainwright will further embolden the Cardinals and pave the way for clinching the NLCS title.
However, Wainwright had visible difficulty in Game 5 of the National League Division Series where the Washington Nationals’ batters took him to task and scored six runs in his outing. Nonetheless, the Cardinals offence came to the rescue and eventually knocked Nationals out.
Be that as it may, Adam Wainwright’s post-season experience has otherwise remained encouraging. In just over 23 innings that Wainwright had thrown prior to Game 5 of NLDS, he had only surrendered two runs.
While the Cardinals' bullpen and offence have performed really well, St. Louis are hedging their bets on the rotation and Wainwright could provide that solid foundation. Wainwright knows the challenges and having his lessons learnt in Game5 of NLDS, he knows what he has to do ahead.
"The last game, I completely choked," he said. "All part of my plan. You lose the first two and you're pitching great, you've got to wake the team up. I don't want them out there sitting back on their heels. I purposely went out and pitched terribly to be unselfish."
Manager Mike Matheny is confident Wainwright will turn the tides given the experience and force that he brings in.
"We've seen him have some exceptional runs this year, and just like any other pitcher, some struggles -- especially a pitcher coming off Tommy John [surgery]," Matheny said. "Early on, he had a little trouble with his consistency and just finding the feel. But, in general, he's responded very well, and most of that's been by his hard work."
With the 3-1 win that the Cardinals had on Wednesday, it appears the Cards seem all set to successfully defend their World Series title which they had won last year after beating the Texas Rangers. A victory in Game 4 may well be the harbinger of that.
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