ST. LOUIS–In recent years, Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright has used Twitter to share what he’s dubbed “Old Man Walks”, time he spends the morning after a start, showing pictures and thoughts about the cities and venues he’s pitched in over the course of his career. 

Wainwright pitched Saturday in London, a once in a career experience as part of the Cardinals-Cubs series. He gave up seven runs on 11 hits in three innings for the loss against Chicago. 

According to the Associated Press, Wainwright described it as a “perfect storm of horribleness."

But on Sunday there was no “Old Man Walk” on Twitter. Instead he deactivated his account.

“If I'm going to get out of this hole and help this team win more games, I need 100 percent commitment. I’ve gotta be 100 percent committed to the idea that I'm going to be great,” Wainwright said in an interview Wednesday with 101 ESPN in St. Louis. “I can't do that if I have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hate mail coming my way and I'm reading 'em.”

For Wainwright, who is 3-2 in the final year of his career, the decision wasn’t a knee-jerk response to feedback after a single start.

He told the 101 ESPN audience that he’s spent the past four weeks blocking people on the social media platform, including after his previous start, where he pitched 6 innings in a St. Louis win against the Mets June 17. Even with a victory, he said he still received hundreds of negative messages.

While fans have shared Tweets of encouragement over the past few days, Wainwright said he’s ok.

“The sad thing I know that the vast majority of followers on there are really nice people and the vast majority of our fans are unbelievable people and just devoted fans of the sport and fans of me actually…. they let me know the last couple days that I'm not the one those other people described, I'm loved and I appreciate that,” he said. 

“There’s just some mean people out there, dude.” 

Besides the comments, Wainwright said the time spent on the platform had come to feel like it was overtaking his life, contributing to the need to pull the plug.