As Cardinals crush Giants, Wainwright and Molina make history together

The longest active battery in baseball is also now the winningest battery in baseball history.

With the St. Louis Cardinals’ 15-6 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Sunday night, Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina have combined for 203 career wins, the most by a pitcher-catcher combo in the history of Major League Baseball. They passed the 202 mark established by Boston/Milwaukee lefthander Warren Spahn and catcher Del Crandall from 1949-63.

With his performance against the Giants, Molina also has passed Baseball Hall of Famer Ted Simmons for the most career home runs by a primary catcher (173), and also passing Ken Boyer‘s 1001 for the 6th most career RBI by a player (1004) Cardinals franchise history (1882-present).

The Cardinals absolutely crushed San Francisco all evening long at Busch Stadium. Home runs by Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt broke the game wide open. The St. Louis Cardinals have homered in 11 consecutive games, the longest streak in Major League Baseball.

Meanwhile, Wainwright shut down the Giants’ bats on the mound. The Cardinals ace limited the Giants to only one hit over the first five innings before a two-run home run by Joc Pederson in the top of the sixth inning. He improves to 4-3 on the season.

One final interesting piece from tonight’s game: in his 2,988th career game, Pujols made his big-league pitching debut in the ninth. He allowed a three-run homer to Giants pitcher Luis Gonzalez, who actually had been the left fielder, and a solo homer to Joey Bart, before getting the non-save save to end the game.

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