ST. LOUIS _ On their 10th try, the Cardinals finally climbed to 10 wins over the .500 level Sunday. It did them little good as their 10-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates was trumped by the San Francisco Giants' 7-1 win over Los Angeles, sewing up the second and final wild-card spot for this week's playoffs in the National League.
San Francisco, which will play at New York on Wednesday, finished the regular season with an 87-75 record to 86-76 for the Cardinals.
"That's the danger when you get down to this and it's not in our hands any more," said Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, "because it truly was dependent on other teams. We couldn't help but look up there (at the scoreboard). That didn't necessarily lighten the mood, but the job remained the same. Just come out and finish this off the right way and put a good product on the field like we've tried to all season."
The Cardinals broke a 4-4 tie with six runs in the seventh inning, an inning ignited by a double by Yadier Molina, who had three hits and finished at a club-high .308 for the season.
By about this time, the Cardinals knew they were eliminated. But there was a bit more drama.
As the top of the ninth started, Cardinals star Matt Holliday, whose contract option is not being picked up, ran out to play left field for one final inning. But no one followed him. His teammates stood and applauded, as well as those in the Pirates' dugout, and, most importantly, the fans who yelled and yelled.
Holliday doffed his cap to the fans and motioned for the rest of the defense to come out, which it finally did.
There was one more standing ovation as Holliday then came off the field, replaced by Tommy Pham before the inning even began.
Matt Carpenter drove in four runs, three on a sixth-inning homer. Starter Adam Wainwright struck out eight over six innings even though he didn't get the victory. The Cardinals won their last four games of the season.
"We played good," Molina said. "It wasn't in our hands. I'm proud of my teammates. We did everything we could and it didn't happen. There's always next year."
First baseman Matt Adams, who hit 16 homers and was the club's most productive pinch hitter in a record-setting season by the Cardinals' benchmen, said, "I've kind of been spoiled because every year I've been up we've been in the playoffs. Even when we got (knocked) out of the playoffs, it was hard to swallow.
"But there's some good things to take away from this year, even though we didn't make the playoffs. This is a good club."
Center fielder Randal Grichuk, who drove in two runs in the six-run seventh, said, "It was frustrating knowing it was out of our control if we won, which happened, but I was definitely was hoping the Dodgers could pull out one of those and we could sweep the Pirates and then advance and at least play a play-in game.
"This is a team that a lot of teams probably don't want to play in the playoffs, with all the past success we've had."
