There might be nothing more beautiful in baseball today than the curveball of two-time World Series champion Adam Wainwright.
The St. Louis Cardinals ace has evolved over his long career.
The right-hander was drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 2000 and was traded over to St. Louis in 2003.
20 years later, Wainwright is still dominating with his curveball, a pitch that has fooled so many of the greatest hitters in the game for such a long time.
On Twitter, an MLB fan posted a compilation video of some of Wainwright’s best and most unhittable curveballs from the 2022 season.
Every Adam Wainwright curveball called a strike from April 7th 2022-August 7th 2022 pic.twitter.com/3AdkrnSFGT
— Gabe (@PlayoffTanaka_) January 8, 2023
The 41-year-old’s curveball is a thing of beauty.
If you’re a hitter, you hope to never experience the challenge of having to hit it.
But even in his advanced age, the veteran right-hander remains a master of craft and is constantly evolving as he reaches the end of his career.
The curveball certainly has its merits.
But the biggest and best one came in Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS.
Wainwright was serving as the closer at the time, with Jason Isringhausen nursing a hip injury.
The bases were loaded with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning.
The only thing that stood between the Cardinals and a trip to the World Series was the esteemed Cardinal killer Carlos Beltran.
On an 0-2 pitch, Wainwright froze the slugger with a curve and sent St. Louis to the Fall Classic.
But since then, the curveball of Wainwright has been his put-away pitch.
2023 will be the final year that fans will be able to experience his mastery.
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