JUPITER, Fla. • After consecutive seasons as a strong contenderfor the National League Cy Young Award, but not its winner, this isthe sacrifice Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright is making to ascendfrom ace to elite: He has given up sweet tea.

The pitcher who once passed the time on the disabled list with aquest for the best barbecue in St. Louis has halved his intake ofbeloved ribs and turned to sugarless sauces. French fries?Forgotten. Fried okra? Bumped from the plate. Fried chicken? Ajilted friend. Wainwright went into a 16-day gastronomic detox thiswinter and emerged with a new diet, one that doesn’t even includethe drink that nourished his Southern roots, his wife’s sweetenediced tea.

“If there’s a way to get better, I’m going to do it, even ifthat’s what it means,” Wainwright said after his first bullpensession at the club’s spring training complex. “When you talk aboutthe top couple starters in the game, I’m still not in theconversation. Every pitcher going into spring training is trying tobe the best pitcher in the league. Or he should be. That’s mindset.If you’re in the conversation as the top two or three starters inMajor League Baseball, then you’re doing your thing. But I’ve yetto get there in most people’s minds.

“You think (Philadelphia’s) Roy Halladay. You think (Seattle’s)Felix Hernandez,” Wainwright continued. “I want to be one of thoseguys.”

Wainwright was among a handful of Cardinals who made their firstappearance of spring at Wednesday’s informal workout. Pitchers andcatchers don’t officially report until Sunday, and their firstscheduled practice is Monday. With pitching coach Dave Duncanwatching, Wainwright threw off the mound Wednesday. He’s penciledin as the starter for the Cardinals’ first exhibition game, Feb. 28against Florida.

The Cardinals ace won 20 games for the first time in his career,a year after leading the National League with 19. He and Cy YoungAward winner Halladay were the only NL starters to finish in thetop 10 in the significant pitching stats such as ERA, inningspitched, strikeouts and WHIP (walks and hits per innings). In astatistical quirk, Wainwright essentially turned opposing battersinto him: He held opponents to a .224 average; he’s a .223 careerhitter.

As a reward, Wainwright became a rich runner-up.

His second-place finish to Halladay in the Cy Young votingtriggered a two-year, $21 million option that will vest if he’shealthy at the end of the season. It also put him in selectcompany. Only three other NL pitchers since 1967 have finishedsecond or third in Cy Young balloting in consecutive years. Two hadpreviously won the award — Brandon Webb and Tom Glavine — and thethird, Curt Schilling, was edged each time by his teammate RandyJohnson.

“I’m competing to be the best pitcher in the league,” Wainwrightsaid. “There’s pretty good competition for that on this team. Forme to compete to be the best pitcher in the league, that’s the onlyway I can go about my work. I’ve never tried to do anything to besecond. Even though that’s where I ended up a lot of times.”

Wainwright, 29, missed his final start of the season with elbowsoreness. That caused some concern because of two previous sprainsand a damaged ligament in the joint. A follow-up exam assured theclub of the elbow’s structure, and Wainwright called it “intact andstrong.” He’s not waiting for it to “pop.”

The experience did inspire a complete physical audit.

Wainwright expressed a feeling of weakness on his left side, andstrength tests also revealed weakness in his rotator cuff. He saidthe latter could have contributed to the elbow trouble. Withguidance from the Cardinals and a St. Louis-based athleticperformance group, Wainwright altered some of his workouts tostrengthen areas in need and stripped his diet.

During one 16-day stretch he could eat only proteins and greenvegetables to “retrain my body to burn fuel properly.” Hush puppieswere a thing of the past. He started to reintroduce carbs later,discovered the virtues of sugar-free sauce for pulled porkbarbecue, and would splurge during one meal a week. That oasis”obviously included something fried,” he said. Wainwright concedesthat as the season starts he may invite some favored food back intohis diet.

Wainwright didn’t recite the time-honored cliché of spring bysaying he’s in the “best shape of his life.” Rather, he’s indifferent shape. He cut his body fat by 5 percent and balanced hisstrength in a way that he said should prevent the hip tightness andlower back soreness that bothered him last year.

“These weren’t problems,” he said. “These are ways to getbetter.”

Since the All-Star break in 2007, the midpoint of Wainwright’sfirst season as a big-league starter, no pitcher with more than 100starts has a better ERA than his 2.68. That bests Halladay,Hernandez and two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum. Cardinalsrighty Jake Westbrook, who also arrived Wednesday, likenedWainwright to two of his former teammates in Cleveland, Cliff Leeand CC Sabathia, each of whom blossomed into Cy Young winners.Westbrook said they “had to grow into this thing, too, going fromgood to great.”

That is the kind of adjective Wainwright is pursuing.Twenty-game winner doesn’t have the ring of other titles outthere.

“It’s obviously cool, but what else is it?” Wainwright said. “Iwin 20 games and we didn’t go to the postseason. We didn’t go tothe World Series. I didn’t win any personal awards for it. Thatmeans there’s got to be something more I have to do, there’ssomething I can do better.

“If anything, it’s made me hungrier.”

And not just for something fried.

Wainwright hungers to pitch even better

Tags: cy young award, Dave Duncanwatching, exhibition game, Brandon Webb, National League

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