LAKELAND, Fla. -- Cardinals right-hander Adam Wainwright began working on a new pitch "three or four days ago." No, seriously. This from a guy with 352 Major League appearances under his belt. He mentioned it to catcher Matt Wieters on their drive from Jupiter to Lakeland.

"We had two and a half hours to talk about what we were going to do," Wieters said. "Pretty good game-planning session. Probably one of the longest ones I’ve had."

Isn’t this why we love Spring Training in general and Wainwright in particular? Monday was a day Wainwright had set aside to work on his fastball command, which wasn’t the most successful part of his three innings in the Cardinals' 9-5 loss to the Tigers.

And Wainwright wanted to throw a split-finger fastball. When? How about now? Hall of Famer John Smoltz had taught him the grip about 16 years ago when both were with the Braves. Tim Lincecum had shown him a different version of it a decade or so ago. Wainwright actually used that one for a bit.

This pitch is different. This one would be more like the pitch Jack Morris and Bruce Sutter rode into the Hall of Fame. Wainwright wasted no time trying to find out if he has found something workable.

In the bottom of the first inning on Monday, when the Tigers got their first two runners on base and Wainwright got two strikes on right fielder Nicholas Castellanos, Wieters signaled for it.

That’s when Wainwright unleashed the split, a 85-mph beauty that had the look of a fastball and took a wicked little dive at home plate. Castellanos swung and missed, then looked back at the scoreboard to check the velocity and try to figure out what he’d just seen.

Later in the game, when Tigers second baseman Josh Harrison fisted another split-finger to right field for a hit, Wainwright would approach him later and ask, "How did you hit that? That’s the first one I’ve ever thrown you like that."

"I don’t know," Harrison said. "It was late."

Wainwright allowed two runs on five hits. He never did find his fastball command, but rather than revert to the breaking stuff, he kept throwing the heater and watching the Tigers whack it.

And Wainwright threw a handful of splits -- some of them hard, like the one to Castellanos, and some of them soft, like the one to Harrison.

Wainwright isn’t sure what his future will be as he prepares for his 14th season, but the new challenge certainly made his second spring start more interesting.

"My fastball command was terrible today," Wainwright said. "I was just having such a hard time. I just gotta keep going. I commanded my fastball very good the first game. Today, I did the opposite."

As for the split, Wainwright said, "If you’re as old as I am, you’ve got to continue to reinvent the wheel sometimes. I’m always looking for that next pitch that’s going to win me the [National League] Cy Young [Award].

"We’ll see. May not be anything. I got a strikeout today when I needed it. Might not be anything. Might be a big story written about nothing I ever throw again."

That split-finger could be part of a general reinvention Wainwright is attempting after a season in which he made just eight starts. He threw more curveballs -- a career-high 36 percent in 2018, according to Statcast -- as he continues to figure out what still works at age 37.

Asked about his confidence, Wainwright said, "It’s good if I don’t go out there and stink and miss with fastball location 80 percent of the time. First time I go out there and locate my fastball down and hit the corners, and they hit the ball into the ground and I got a couple of strikeouts. Today, I made it a lot harder on myself."

But Wainwright made it more interesting, too.