ST. LOUIS – Adam Wainwright just completed his 17th MLB season. While the 41-year-old hurler proved durable for most of the 2022 campaign, he had hoped for a stronger finish.

Wainwright took to Twitter on Wednesday afternoon to clarify details about some setbacks he encountered in the final weeks of the season.

“The end of the season should have been way different for me, and who knows what happens if I’m sharp down the stretch. I feel terrible about it. Y’all deserved better. My team deserved better. I owed an explanation,” said Wainwright in a five-tweet thread on Wednesday.

The two-time Cy Young runner-up says things changed after a comebacker hit him in the knee in a Sunday Night Baseball game against the Atlanta Braves in late-August. It wasn’t until after that game, he realized his stride length was nearly one foot shorter, which Wainwright claims threw off his mechanics.

“That had never been a problem for me in the past. My stride length has always been very consistent. Because my timing was so badly off, my front arm started to try and create power by pulling. And when that happens you just pull yourself off target,” said Wainwright via Twitter.

Wainwright said he wasn’t able to generate power in his arm and had trouble making adjustments. Manager Oli Marmol referred to the situation a few times as a “dead arm” in September. Wainwright now refutes that claim.

“What I was attributing to dead arm was an awful delivery,” said Wainwright. He adds, “I didn’t stay diligent enough with my film work to catch it immediately. It wasn’t something I had struggled with before.”

Despite the struggles, Wainwright finished with a respectable 3.71 earned run average, 11 wins and 143 strikeouts over 191.2 innings pitched this season. He also broke a baseball record with Yadier Molina in mid-September for most starts as a MLB battery.

After that milestone, tides turned quickly on Wainwright. He allowed 14 runs over 13.2 innings in his final three tuneups of the regular season, ultimately missing out on a chance to start a postseason game. While the Cardinals roster Wainwright for the National League Wild Card Series, he never took the mound for it.

Wainwright will officially hit free agency next month if he does not re-sign with the Cardinals. He has not announced his plans for baseball beyond this year, unlike his close companions retiring in Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols.