What the Cardinals should do about Adam Wainwright come playoff time

It’s all about Marmol’s quick-hook ability.

The Cardinals enter the realm of postseason play in just eight days, but there are leaks and unsure elements to this team that could affect the length of their stay in the Hotel Playoff. Let's address one of them on this beautiful Thursday afternoon, maybe the most pressing. 

What do with a dead-armed Adam Wainwright?

The franchise veteran usually encounters these troubles around midseason and it's handled by the final weeks of the season, but the "dead arm" is showing its ugly face at the worst time. After dazzling crowds and derailing opposing hitters for the first five months of the season, September has alienated Wainwright's maestro arm, one that is still holding strong at 41 years of age. 

The fact that we are talking about Wainwright's viability for the postseason in 2022 is something. Three seasons ago, he almost called it quits before making yet another adjustment and contending for Cy Young votes. But that's the past and this is the incoming present. Manager Oliver Marmol has some potentially uncomfortable decisions to make before next Friday. 

Wainwright's career issue, one of the few there are, revolves around a strength of pitching at home. With all three home games of a wildcard series with the Philadelphia Phillies, one could say having #50 get one of those games isn't that big of a deal, even on playoff waters. 

For his career, Wainwright's home/road splits:

Home: 203 starts, 2.83 ERA

Road: 186 starts, 3.99 ERA

2022 Home/Road Splits:

Home: 17 starts, 2.61 ERA

Road: 14 starts, 4.73 ERA

However, this year's dead arm phase includes rotten apples in starts at Busch Stadium, including three of his five starts in September. A start on Sept. 14 yielded five innings of one run ball. On Sept. 3 and Sept. 8, though, Wainwright allowed four earned runs in five innings both times. San Diego and Los Angeles beat him up for eight earned runs in nine innings combined over his last two starts on the road. 

What about Waino versus Philly this year? In a start on July 3, he allowed four earned runs in 5.2 innings. However, the next start saw Wainwright shut the Phillies down for nine innings, and that came at Busch. Then again, that was almost three months ago, long before the deadness in his right arm arose again 

Here's the thing. Wainwright has handled the Pirates all year, including a pair of starts where they could only muster one combined earned run. If he can show up with strong stuff on Sunday, he gets the start on that following Friday for Game 1 on regular rest. There's NO WAY that Marmol doesn't go with Wainwright if he pitches well Sunday. Then again, if he doesn't pitch well... I still think he makes a start. 

The key with Marmol and Wainwright's usage is knowing when to yank the starter if things don't look good or go sideways quickly. A three game series in the playoffs leaves a lot of starters open to rescue, including Jose Quintana or Andre Pallante. There's no excuse, nostalgia or respect based, that can cut through the media's demands for leaving Wainwright in too long. 

Philadelphia will tip their cap to Wainwright, and promptly destroy him if he comes out pitching like he has these past few starts. That Wainwright gets the Cardinals nowhere in October, possibly hindering them and their pen for the series. The best way to safeguard that for Marmol, who will be managing his first postseason series, is having a planned set of attacks if the feel-good story doesn't show up next week. 

He has to know when to say when. Simple as that. Don't be like Mike Matheny allowing a sick Jaime Garcia to take the mound in 2015 against the Washington Nationals. Don’t be like Mike and let a hurt Jaime pitch in a 2012 playoff game. Don't make a mistake that fractures your team's chances in order to show respect for someone who theoretically already owns a red jacket already. 

If Wainwright didn't fare well on Sunday, Marmol should align Miles Mikolas, who looked superb on Tuesday, to start Game 1. Maybe even follow that up with Jack Flaherty or Jordan Montgomery, with Quintana serving as a long relief or last minute starter option. If the team was still thin on starters like they were in July, this would be a moot point. He'd be starting. Then again, the team may not be thinking about a playoff series so early without those trade deadline additions. 

With so many options and an offense climbing their way out of a similar dead bat hole, the Cardinals can't afford to take the Waino situation lightly. The easy thing is to say put him in there because he has the heart of a lion or a bulldog mentality on the mound. That works for gritting out regular season starts against division foes. That doesn't work in October against Bryce Harper and the Phillies. 

A good Wainwright bolsters a team in postseason play. That's the extra incentive here digging away at our baseball morality. When you have a 2.83 ERA in 114.1 innings in the most meaningful month of baseball, it makes you yearn for one last showing from Old Man Waino. He's old for an MLB veteran on paper alone, all the way until this month. 

Can he push off Father Time for one more fall, or will this be where the wall finally stands its ground on one of St. Louis's most beloved and durable players? 

Yes, he could return next year, but I am starting to doubt that as the weeks pile up. Something about this late season dead arm problem and his two career-long buddies stepping down gives it a fair shot. He just isn't, and never has been, about making that decision in the spring. 

The decision right now that looms for the Cardinals is how much goodness Adam Wainwright has left this year. 

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry/USA Today Sports.