During Tuesday night’s Cubs-Cardinals game, Adam Wainwright threw a pitch that can only be described as 50 Cent-level bad.
50 Cent: "I threw the worst pitch in baseball history."
Adam Wainwright: "Hold my beer…"pic.twitter.com/1yvWO4lfY6
— TPS (@TotalProSports) April 5, 2017
The pitch bounced maybe halfway to the plate and far enough up the first-base line that catcher Yadier Molina had no prayer of stopping it. There were two runners on base at the time, and obviously both of them moved up as a result of the wild pitch.
So what happened? Well, Wainwright explained afterward that he thew the bouncer because he was pretty sure he and Molina had their signals crossed, and he didn’t want to drill his catcher with a surprise fastball. Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“I saw him shift outside and I was looking at a different part of the plate,” Wainwright explained after the Cardinals’ 2-1 loss to the Cubs. “When I saw that, instantly – and I saw it before – I thought he was looking for a breaking ball and I had fastball grip. I did not want to throw a ball and hit him in the collarbone or something and have Yadier out. I pull-hooked it and erred on the side of not hitting him – by 20, 30 yards.”
The pitch was an 0-2 offering to opposing hurler Jake Arrieta, so throwing a ball there wasn’t going to hurt him too much. He probably didn’t mean for the outcome to be quite so errant, but that was the price of keeping his catcher safe.
