JUPITER, Fla. -- Due to the lockout, Adam Wainwright didn’t know when or if he would get to his 17th season with the Cardinals. But what he did know was that he needed to be in the best shape possible and ready to go when the green flag dropped on the season.

To get to that point and manipulate his 40-year-old body into tip-top shape, Wainwright had to go back to school -- as in high school. As in old school for the old man.

While some players hired high-priced trainers to whip them into shape and others drilled at facilities equipped with high-tech machinery, Wainwright sweated daily at Glynn Academy in Brunswick, Ga., the school where his high school number, No. 6, hangs in retirement. Working out at the baseball field he helped to design meant being teammates with players 24 years his junior -- or roughly the age of his daughter. And it meant doing everything those high school players did to get ready -- including sprint work, throwing batting practice and even pitching fielding practice.

As a result Wainwright was ready to go when the Cardinals opened Spring Training on Monday, and he was the first pitcher to throw live BP that afternoon. On Friday, Wainwright’s hard work, preparedness and professionalism was rewarded with the first starting assignment of the spring against fellow veteran Justin Verlander and the Astros.

“The key was being ready for when the call comes, because I didn’t know when that was going to be -- midseason, a quarter-way into the season or the first day of the season,” said Wainwright, who allowed two hits and one run over two innings in the Cardinals' 4-2 win over the Astros. “I just didn’t know when it would come, but I just knew I needed to be ready whenever that was.”

The dependability of Wainwright -- who is tied with Hall of Famer Bob Gibson for second in longevity with the Cardinals -- has never been more important to the organization with the availability of Jack Flaherty and Alex Reyes up in the air. Flaherty, St. Louis' Opening Day starter in 2020 and ’21, was deemed to have “a small tear” in his right shoulder after meeting with a doctor in Los Angeles on Friday. Reyes, who won 10 games and saved 29 games last season before losing his closer job, recently received a stem-cell injection in his right shoulder because of a frayed labrum. The Cards are planning to shut both pitchers down from throwing for two weeks before determining rehabilitation plans, and neither will be ready for Opening Day.

Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said he never had any doubt that Wainwright would show up to Spring Training in phenomenal shape. One of Wainwright’s greatest traits -- in addition to his famed 12-to-6 curveball -- is his leadership among the pitching staff, Marmol said. 

“He sets the tone for a lot of what we do here,” Marmol said. “He’s been a great contributor to the culture here, and he’s what preparation and dedication look like. He’s definitely a needle-mover for us.”

Wainwright’s 2021 season, in which he won 17 games and posted a 3.05 ERA over 206 1/3 innings, was a renaissance performance for the 6-foot-7 right-hander. He was the only NL pitcher to rank in the top 10 in wins, innings, starts, ERA, WHIP and BABIP. He used much of that same stuff on Friday to keep the Astros mostly off balance, save for an RBI double to Corey Julks in the second inning.

“I felt great, and I made some good pitches, but I made one really bad pitch in the middle of the plate,” said Wainwright, who threw 23 of his 30 pitches for strikes. “The only pitch I want back was the double in the gap. That’s why it’s Spring Training, and we’re working on those things.”

Preceding that work was the work Wainwright did in his hometown. Wainwright would call the Glynn Academy coaching staff on a daily basis to find out the practice times, and he suited up alongside high school players who looked up to him -- literally and figuratively. While building up his arm strength enough to throw the equivalent of three innings, Wainwright fired several knee-buckling curveballs, and the teenagers held their own better than expected, he said.

Without that work, Wainwright said he never would have been ready to go when the lockout ended and camps opened last Monday. Now, he has his eyes on being fully ready to pitch on Opening Day.

“I love pitching, and I love competing. I don’t love the work in between as much, but I do it because I love getting out there between the lines and pitching,” said Wainwright, who has made five Opening Day starts for the Cardinals. “Everybody wants to start Opening Day, right? That’s what everybody has a goal for, so we’ll see what happens.”