Wainwright heading to St. Louis for abdominal exam

JUPITER, Fla. -- Adam Wainwright called his trip to meet with doctors in St. Louis about his lower abdominal pain strictly precautionary.

"I want to be fair to you and say that anything I say about it will just be speculation," Wainwright said Wednesday morning. "I don't think it's very serious at all. I think, probably going to up there, probably not going to see, much of anything all, but I don't know that."

Wainwright said he first felt the injury in a Monday weight room session, but didn't think much of what he called the "twinge" he felt while putting a 45-pound weight back on the rack. Since then he's thrown pain free. The pain occurs when he runs or lunges.

"I just kind of got at a weird angle and, I don't know, it kind of just grabbed me," Wainwright explained. "Like I said, after it happened I didn't think anything of it."

He expects to be back in Jupiter late Thursday or early Friday.

"What I've been told is that there's a very high possibility that we are going to get up there and go, 'All right, just lay low for another couple of days and we're good,"' he said.

Wainwright took the field with the Cardinals for Tuesday's pre-workout exercises but left shortly after feeling the discomfort. He skipped any baseball-related activities.

Wainwright could have returned to St. Louis on Tuesday, but he stayed in South Florida an extra night to be with the Cardinals for their first full team meeting of the year Wednesday, held prior to the position players' first workout.

For manager Mike Matheny, General Manager John Mozeliak and principal owner Bill DeWitt, the meeting marked the first time they addressed the entire team since the offseason death of right-fielder Oscar Taveras.

"We're having some big conversations," Matheny said. "We need our big boys here. I was happy to see that he could stick around."

Wainwright went 20-9 with a 2.38 ERA last year, then had offseason surgery to remove cartilage from his throwing elbow.

He arrived in Jupiter early, intent on proving he was healthy and prepared to be the Cardinals opening-day starter. Matheny doesn't plan on juggling routines or changing the way he evaluates the staff until he hears a diagnosis on Wainwright.

"You anticipate that there may be some blips somewhere, things might not be exactly how we originally intended," Matheny said. "We never want any of our guys slowed down -- especially a guy that's worked so hard to get here."