(Photo : screen-grab)

The 85th Annual All-Star Game takes place tonight (July 15) in Minnesota at Target Field and St. Louis Cardinals' pitcher; Adam Wainwright is accrediting Jesus to his unique style of pitching.

The ace pitcher explained in a recent interview with CBN.com that he came to have a deeper relationship with Jesus while being groomed to become a starting pitcher after his success in the game as a closer.

"[The pastor] was talking about relationship, and how there's nothing we can do to earn salvation," Wainwright explained to CBN video interview, "We're all lost and we all need the grace of God. It made sense to me-Jesus was pursuing me, and I was finally ready to let Him catch me."

After having back to back 19 and 20 win seasons, Wainwright injured his elbow. He recalled a statement his wife made to him during the time of his injury where she really encouraged him to not find his identity in the baseball game.

"She said, 'I just want you to know, to me you're not a baseball player, you're my husband, my spiritual leader, my kid's father. You're so much more to me than this game of baseball.' I took tremendous pleasure in that," the pitcher said, "just knowing that my identity with her, myself and my teammates was not so much as a player, it was as a godly man. A Christ-following man in the house and out of the house."

After recovering from his injury, Wainwright's pitching strength was not the same. While this may seem like a bad thing, he said it freed him up to become an even better person.

"At some level, you have to point to my faith... I'm freed up into a way of playing baseball that has allowed me to go out there and play fearless[ly]," the two time Cy Young Award runner up said, "God has granted me the strength, mentally, to believe in my ability. The freedom out there, to completely be me, and just have fun mixing and matching [pitches]. I think that freedom only comes from a relationship with Christ."

Wainwright's new creative strategy of pitching has earned him the highest winning percentage of any current National League pitcher since 2008 and he is the 2014 All-Star starting pitcher for the National League.

The loving husband and father said his anchor scripture is now Acts 20:24 which says, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the good news of God's grace."

Wainwright ends the interview by saying,"If I'm not using my life and this platform for good, for the kingdom, then I'm completely wasting it."

Watch Wainwright's full interview with CBN below: