Not The Best Week For Adam Wainwright

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I’ve been trying to come up with the apropos analogy for Adam Wainwright’s week.

He was selected as a Major League Baseball All-Star. And not only did he make it to the most elite level of the sport, he was elite amongst the elite. Selected as the NL starter, he was actually the ELITIST.

Think about how he felt – taking the mound as a starting pitcher in the freaking All-Star game. If there ever was a moment that someone could take a deep breath, a good look around and appreciate the moment, it was Adam wainwright about 7:15 on Tuesday night.

2 days later he’s being vilified in New York for harshing Jeter’s farewell to baseball, hammered in Los Angeles for taking the spot of what those fans believe was Clayton Kershaw’s and getting questioned in St. Louis for not trying to win when the Cardinals have a legit shot at another World Series appearance.

Seeing as yesterday is the only day of the year without a sporting event (no, MLS doesn’t count), everything was amplified.

What is it?

What’s the analogy?

To be at, ostensibly, an awards banquet for your job and have everything turn on you so quick. It’s got to be awful. Like winning an Oscar and getting booed off the stage for thanking your PR team for their great campaign to win the award? (Actors aren’t supposed to ‘campaign’ for themselves, per se, they have people that do the dirty work…)

Maybe.

I’m not sure that totally works. But I can’t come up with anything better.

It’s just a shame that the Cardinals best player in the first half of 2014 didn’t have a good experience in what was a celebration of the sport. Heck, you could even argue that from an image standpoint, this is the lowest Wainwright has ever been.

He left for Minnesota on top of the world. And he comes back with a pall. Exactly 0 teammates will throw out the obligatory ‘so how was it, man’? And if they do, they’ll just get a look.

This will all pass for Cardinals fans soon. If it hasn’t already. But for Wainwright, let’s hope he continues his crazy good pitching so the national narrative can shift away from ‘grooving one’.

And yes, he probably grooved one if 538 is doing analysis on it.

Photo: Baseball Titans

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