Twitter was seemingly designed for taking sports coverage even further in depth, and it plays a big part in what we do as part of our coverage here. Each shift is spent pouring over twitter for every breaking news tidbit, because reporters who cover games put things up there before any other medium at this point.
Sometimes, through the flood of live scoring updates and pictures from the press box -- beat writers do this a lot -- a strange, nugget will filter through out of left field. One account in particular is a great resource for these types of tweets, and CBSSports.com Eye On Baseball's Dayn Perry caught one late Thursday.
Wut. RT @everyword: wainwrights
— Dayn Perry (@daynperry) April 4, 2014
At midnight, an account dedicated to tweeting every word in the English language dropping Adam Wainwright's surname is exactly the type of thing that catches your eye. According to Merriam-Webster.com, a "wainwright" is a historical maker and repairer of wagons, with the word's first known usage coming prior to the 12th century.
However, this seems like a good time for this word to adopt a new meaning. This tweet sparked a brief discussion about just what a "Wainwright" might be, within the context of baseball.
My suggestion?
@daynperry @everyword Gonna assume that's what we call 7 IP, 2 ER, 6 K, 1 BB lines friom now on.
— Chris Towers (@CTowersCBS) April 4, 2014
In 2013, Wainwright actually finished in a tie with Clayton Kershaw and Chris Sale for second in the majors with 10 Wainwrights in 34 starts, a 29.4-percent success rate. In this context, a "Wainwright" is defined as any outing in which a pitcher allowed two or fewer runs, with at least six strikeouts and no more than one walk over seven-plus innings.
Your league leader in this entirely made up stat? Cliff Lee, with 14. He might not finish the season with league-leading numbers, but there also might not be a better pitcher in baseball than Lee when he's at his best.
Despite his second-place Cy Young finish a year ago, Wainwright still has some room for improvement in at least one eponymous -- and admittedly arbitrary -- stat category.
