(KMOX) - St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright has pitched in 2,369 innings, but he did something at the end of the third inning in Thursday's game for the first time in his 16-year MLB career.
He approached the home plate umpire to have a conversation.
It happened, oddly, after a clean 1-2-3 inning by Wainwright. But many who were watching the game noticed the frustrations shown by Wainwright and his battery mate of 304 games, Yadier Molina, after at least one clear strike was missed by home plate umpire Carlos Torres.
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After the game, Wainwright was asked what he said to the ump.
"I had never done that before. I really just wanted to know where he went to dinner last night, if he knew any good restaurants in the area, if he was gonna watch the Ryder Cup," Wainwright said. "There were lots of things we talked about. It was a really good conversation."
Video showed both Wainwright and Molina talking to the umpire after the third inning.
"Did the 2-2 pitch come up?," asked St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Derrick Goold, speaking of what looked like it should have been a called strike three.
"Well, those are things once you establish where dinner was then maybe you share dinner and share those kinds of things later on," Wainwright said with a grin.
A pitch tracker shows a few missed calls by Torres during the game:
Did they really talk about the local food scene? Not a chance. But after his team dug him out of a 5-0 hole, Wainwright had good reason to be in a joking mood.
He also recorded his 2,000th career strikeout in the game... without much help from Mr. Torres.
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