PITTSBURGH — Adam Wainwright felt and looked a little more like the Adam Wainwright of old. The St. Louis ace’s curveball looped. The fastball cut. Neither happened often enough or well enough to fend off the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Pittsburgh chipped away at Wainwright in six solid if not spectacular innings as the Cardinals fell 4-1 in the 2016 Major League Baseball season opener on Sunday. In his first regular season start since tearing his Achilles last April, Wainwright gave up three runs on six hits, walking three and striking out three in his fifth career opening day start.
“I certainly got better as I went along,” Wainwright said. “But I’m still a little off timing or something, there’s something that has not clicked yet. I feel it at times and I know I’m very close to it.
Pittsburgh’s Francisco Liriano left Wainwright little margin for error. Liriano tied a Pirates franchise opening day record by striking out 10 and the Cardinals left 10 runners on base, including two in the ninth when Matt Adams, representing the tying run, flied out to center.
“When you pitch against a quality pitcher like Liriano you’ve got to have your stuff rolling,” Wainwright said. “I was the definition of average today, which is the opposite of what I expect to be.”
Liriano and John Jaso touched Wainwright for RBI singles in the second and Josh Harrison added a sacrifice fly in the sixth.
“I thought he did a nice job of keeping it together,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. “Really it was a bloop fly over the infield and a grounder that cost him early. But after that, he was very good.”
Just not good enough to keep up with Liriano. St. Louis tested him in the second, third and sixth only to come up empty each time.
“We had guys in scoring position with less than two outs more than once and that’s something we take a lot of pride in figuring out how to get it done,” Matheny said. “It just didn’t happen today.”
The Cardinals tried to rally in the ninth against Mark Melancon, who led the majors in saves last year. Matt Carpenter hit an RBI single with two outs but Adams hit a shallow fly to center that Andrew McCutchen tracked down while the sun-splashed if frosty capacity crowd at PNC Park roared.
ROYALS 4, METS 3
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The reigning champion Kansas City Royals picked up where they left off in November, beating Matt Harvey and the New York Mets on Sunday night in the first opening-day rematch of a World Series.
With runners at the corners in the ninth inning, All-Star closer Wade Davis struck out David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes for the save.
Edinson Volquez (1-0), who started the decisive Game 5 at Citi Field last fall, allowed two hits over six scoreless innings.
It wasn’t until Joakim Soria came on in the eighth that New York rallied, scoring three times on Lucas Duda’s two-run single and Neil Walker’s RBI groundout. Luke Hochevar struck out Asdrubal Cabrera to strand runners on first and second.
Harvey (0-1) allowed four runs — three earned — and eight hits in 5 2-3 innings.
BLUE JAYS 5, RAYS 3
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Marcus Stroman outpitched Chris Archer in his first opening day start, helping the Toronto Blue Jays begin defense of their first AL East title in 22 years by beating Tampa Bay.
Stroman allowed three runs and six hits over eight-plus innings. Roberto Osuna got three outs for a save.
Archer struck out a Rays opening-day record 12 in five innings.
Troy Tulowitzki hit the first home run of the 2016 MLB season, a two-run shot for Toronto. Edwin Encarnacion had two hits and drove in two runs after not batting in a major league exhibition all spring training because of injuries.