Cubs vs. Cardinals: How to Watch, Rain Delay — Wainwright on the WBC

ST. LOUIS — Rain has delayed the start of the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals series opener at Busch Stadium. The game has been delayed rather than postponed, and both clubs expect a window once the storm cell passes.

How to watch Cubs vs. Cardinals

Matchup: Chicago Cubs (59-46) at St. Louis Cardinals (53-52)
Location: Busch Stadium, St. Louis
Date: Monday, July 27, 2026
Scheduled first pitch: 7:45 p.m. ET / 6:45 p.m. CT — currently in delay
TV (Cardinals): Cardinals.TV presented by bet365
TV (Cubs): Marquee Sports Network
Radio (Cardinals): KMOX 1120 AM / 104.1 FM; WIJR AM 880 (en español)
Radio (Cubs): 104.3 The Score

Probable pitchers

Left-hander David Peterson (5-7, 5.97 ERA, 74 K) goes for Chicago against Cardinals left-hander Matthew Liberatore (5-7, 5.18 ERA, 95 K). Both clubs enter the week ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline, Chicago second in the National League Central and St. Louis fourth.

Lineups

Season totals: HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS. Lineups are subject to change, particularly following a delay.

Chicago Cubs

St. Louis Cardinals

Baseball Without Borders: the lineup card

The Cardinals lineup includes outfielder Lars Nootbaar, who represented Japan at the World Baseball Classic through his mother’s heritage, and Panamanian-born catcher Iván Herrera. Chicago’s card features Japanese outfielder Seiya Suzuki in right.

No opponent saw more of Adam Wainwright

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright, top, throws to St. Louis Cardinals’ Kris Bryant during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, May 23, 2021, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Scott Kane)

Over 18 seasons in St. Louis, Adam Wainwright faced the Cubs in 59 games — more than any other club, ahead of Milwaukee (55), Pittsburgh (51) and Cincinnati (41).

They were not easy nights. Cubs hitters batted .266 with a .322 on-base percentage and a .414 slugging mark against him, drawing 93 walks and hitting 28 home runs. By tOPS+, they handled him better than the league at large did. His final postseason series, the 2015 National League Division Series, was a loss to Chicago.

Wainwright, now retired, recently sat for a long conversation on the podcast Dirt from the Dugout. Much of it was about the World Baseball Classic.

“You’re playing for country”

U.S. starting pitcher Adam Wainwright (50) aims a pitch during the first inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Cuba, Sunday, March 19, 2023, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Wainwright pitched for Team USA at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, at 41, in the final season of his career. Asked what it meant, he put it above everything else he had done in the game.

“It’s probably the best baseball experience in my life,” he said. “It’s just a different experience when you’ve got the country on the front of the jersey and they’re chanting USA, USA. It just doesn’t get better than that.”

“You’re not playing for money, you’re playing for country. You’re playing for the love of the game, and you’re playing to represent all the kids that came before you and behind you — and all those little kids in the stands with the USA war paint on their face.”

He said the feeling was not confined to him: “I’ve heard this from almost everybody who’s played on that Team USA team the last two times through.”

And he made the comparison that clarifies it: “Going to an All-Star Game, you’re surrounded by the best players in baseball. It’s an incredible experience for like a day and a half. The WBC was an incredible experience exactly like that for a whole month.”

Then the line that lands hardest in this ballpark: “I love with a deep passion the St. Louis Cardinals — but there was nothing like wearing the USA on the jersey.”

It beat closing out a World Series

St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina (4) leaps into the arms of pitcher Adam Wainwright after the Cardinals beat the Detroit Tigers 4-2 in Game 5 to win the World Series on Friday, Oct. 27, 2006 in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The comparison carries weight because of what it’s being measured against. Wainwright was 24 when he threw the last pitch of the 2006 World Series.

“Only one person in the world gets to close the World Series out every year, and I got to be that person,” he said. “I did that 500,000 times before it happened. That was muscle memory.”

On Mark DeRosa

U.S. pitching coach Andy Pettitte (13) talks to starting pitcher Adam Wainwright (50) during the first inning of a World Baseball Classic game against Cuba, Sunday, March 19, 2023, in Miami. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

Wainwright reserved his strongest praise for his Team USA manager, a former teammate from 2009.

“He is the perfect manager for that situation, because he is the best at rallying a group of dudes in a room that I’ve ever met,” Wainwright said.

“All the contract stuff’s out the door. None of that matters. It’s all: how can we help this team win for our country?”

He described the effect DeRosa had on a clubhouse: “You could be as dead as a doornail in there, and he’d walk in the room and all of a sudden everybody’s doing the D-Roe voice.”

And he framed the job itself as the hard part, not the strategy: “How do I motivate a group of guys who don’t play with each other all year, who are All-Stars, to come together and be one for a couple of weeks? And how do I do it right away? Because you’ve got to win right away. If not, you go home and everybody thinks you stink.”

The Cubs fan who wanted him

Musical artist Eddie Vedder, left, and former Chicago Cubs player Anthony Rizzo interact during the MLB All-Star Game handoff event before a baseball game between the Cubs and the Minnesota Twins in Chicago, Friday, July 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)

Wainwright, who calls himself one of the biggest Pearl Jam fans there is, said he received a gift from Eddie Vedder when he retired. Vedder is a lifelong Cubs fan.

“Hey man,” Wainwright recalled him saying, “really wish you’d have played for the Cubs.”

He did not. Wainwright went 200-128 with a 3.53 ERA and 2,202 strikeouts across 2,668.1 innings, all of them in a Cardinals uniform, and finished second in Cy Young voting twice and third twice more.

The hitters he couldn’t solve

St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright, right, looks at catcher Yadier Molina after neither could catch a pop up by Boston Red Sox’s Stephen Drew during the second inning of Game 1 of baseball’s World Series Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013, in Boston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

Asked who he most enjoyed the challenge of facing, Wainwright named Chipper Jones first — and explained a childhood habit that came with it.

“I wore my pants up in high school and Little League, because from 1995 on, Chipper wore his pants up,” he said. “And then he wore his pants down, and I’m like — no. I thought he was a pants guy.”

On Freddie Freeman: “They asked me if anybody hits .400 again, who’s it going to be? I say Freddie Freeman every time. Probably the toughest out ever.”

And on Aramis Ramírez, the one he says he could never retire — whom he later ran into in the stands at a winter league game in the Dominican Republic while on a mission trip: “I said, get out of my life.”

On never quitting

Wainwright came back from Tommy John surgery and a torn Achilles, and finished with a 7.40 ERA in his final season rather than walk away early.

“I just don’t have a bone to quit in my body,” he said. “Somebody had to basically pull me off the field, because I always think I’m one pitch away from figuring it out.”

What’s next

St. Louis and Chicago are scheduled to continue the series Tuesday, with forecasts calling for a high near 90 and a chance of a stray shower or thunderstorm.