ST. LOUIS _ It wasn't the Adam Wainwright of old. We'll never see that again. The old one would have gone nine innings. But what a sellout Busch Stadium crowd of 45,217 did witness Sunday night was an Adam Wainwright of new who can compete _ and win _ in the major leagues.
With catcher Yadier Molina handling a Wainwright start for the 240th time, and choreographing it brilliantly, the 37-year-old righthander kept the St. Louis Cardinals' wild-card chances relevant and the Los Angeles Dodgers uncomfortable. Mixing, maddeningly so to the Dodgers, a batch of curveballs, cutters, changeups and just enough 90 mph fastballs, Wainwright struck out nine and allowed just two hits over six scoreless innings while throwing 101 pitches.
Seventy-five seemed to be the magic number, because that was the speed of the curveball that registered almost all of his strikeouts as Wainwright and the bullpen salvaged the final game of a four-game series from Los Angeles 5-0.
The Cardinals' victory, after four successive losses, enabled them to pull into a tie with the Dodgers for the second wild-card spot at 82-68 and ensured that the Cardinals would have the home-field advantage over the Dodgers in any pre-playoff tiebreaker because they beat the Dodgers four times in seven games for the season.
Marcell Ozuna, who had a three-hit night, gave the Cardinals only their third lead in the four-game series when he ripped a Ross Stripling four-seamer 399 feet into the right-center-field seats in the second inning. It was Ozuna's 22nd home run of the season.
Molina had two hits and would drive in two of the Cardinals' other four runs and hit another ball that was booted, creating a third run.
The key inning was the fourth when the Cardinals gave Wainwright some room with which to work, scoring twice to go ahead 3-0.
A wild pitch by Stripling as he struck out Yairo Munoz was the ignition. Paul DeJong singled and after Ozuna flied out, Jedd Gyorko ran the count to 3-2. Manager Mike Shildt started the runners and Gyorko singled hard to left, scoring Munoz and sending DeJong to third.
Molina also singled to left, scoring DeJong and ending Stripling's night as the Dodgers proceeded to use six relievers.
Shildt started the runners again in the sixth with men at first and second and a 2-2 count on Molina, who bounced a ball to third baseman Justin Turner, who, in his haste to get two outs by stepping on third and throwing to first, got none. Ozuna scored the fourth run as the ball eluded Turner for an error.
DeJong scored again in the eighth on Molina's second single.
Wainwright, who became the first pitcher in Busch III history to work 1,000 innings there, largely eschewed the fastball in the first inning, finishing it off with a 75 mph toss that froze a disappointed Max Muncy.
Wainwright then broke out the fastball in the second, throwing a half dozen at 90 or higher. But he ended this inning with another strikeout on a slow curve, with veteran Chase Utley flailing futilely, leaving Yasiel Puig at first.
In the third, Wainwright again closed out the Dodgers with a 70ish slow-curve for strike three. This swing and miss by Turner netted two outs as Joc Pederson, running on the pitch, pulled up short at second as Molina's missile-like throw arrived and, ultimately, Pederson was run down for the back half of a double play.
There were two more strikeouts in a scoreless fourth, both on curveballs in the mid-70s, by Muncy and Cody Bellinger.
And just when the Dodgers were waiting for Wainwright's curve, a couple of which agitated Puig in the fifth, Wainwright blew a 90 mph high fastball past Utley for his seventh strikeout.
Pederson became the eighth strikeout on a cutter to end the fifth, with a charged Wainwright yelling to himself and pumping his fists ever so slightly as he walked off the field.
When third baseman Gyorko gloved Muncy's bouncer and threw to first for the final out of the sixth, Wainwright strode briskly off the field to a standing ovation as he became only the third Cardinals starter to pitch as many as six scoreless innings since Aug. 17. His 101 pitches were his most since he had 107 on July 22 of last year in Chicago when he hurt himself, causing Wainwright to be on the disabled list for much of the time since then with elbow problems.
Bud Norris started the seventh but came out after a middle finger blister _ and a leadoff walk _ for Jordan Hicks, pitching for the first time in a week. Hicks, feeling strong, reeled off a dozen or so pitches of 103 or 104 mph and, after also walking the first man he faced, he didn't allow the Dodgers to move either of those runners, handcuffing Puig for a strikeout along the way.
Hicks fanned two more in the eighth, completing his first two-inning stint since July 4, and fielded Muncy's smash off his glove for the final out before Carlos Martinez finished up.
The Dodgers had their home-run streak stopped at 23 games, one short of the franchise mark set in Brooklyn by the National League champions in 1953.
Shildt had said before the game that just because the Cardinals had lost four in a row before Sunday, he had no special message for his club.
"It's the same message to the team as on April 3, March 5, June 8," he said. "It's about the day-to-day habit of how to compete.
"You just play. That will either be good enough or it won't. And there's peace in that."
Wainwright was plenty good enough Sunday night. And there's at least some peace for Cardinals fans in that the playoff push still is alive.
