Harrison Bader tripled and homered to help the St. Louis Cardinals clinch a postseason berth on the final day of the regular season with a 5-2 win over Milwaukee and the Brewers also earned a playoff spot Sunday via help on the West Coast moments later.
St. Louis (30-28) will be the fifth seed in the NL and open a three-game wild-card series at San Diego on Wednesday. By winning, the Cardinals avoided having to travel to Detroit for two makeup games Monday.
The Brewers (29-31) locked up the eighth seed after the Padres beat San Francisco 5-4 in a game that ended about 15 minutes later. The Giants finished with an identical record as the Brewers but lost out on a tiebreaker due to an inferior intradivision record.
Milwaukee will face the top-seeded Dodgers in Los Angeles in a three-game series that also starts Wednesday.
The Brewers haven't had a winning record at any point this season. They are the first team ever to qualify for the playoffs with a losing mark.
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