ATLANTA -- Watching Wednesday’s game unfold in the dugout,
“It’s real hard not to,” Wainwright said. “You put up 10 runs in the first -- my message to everyone was, ‘Hey, this game is not over. We’ve got a lot of baseball to play.’ I was trying to not taste it, but it was hard.\n\n• [Box score](https://www.mlb.com/gameday/599356/final/box)\n\n“I’ve never seen anything like that in person or on TV if I’m being honest with you. You can never be ready for it. You just hope you’re on the right side of it. Luckily today we were.”\n\n• [Dress for NLCS: Get Cardinals postseason gear](https://www.mlbshop.com/st-louis-cardinals/t-14893365+z-9160674-481965893?vap=1&_s=bm-mlb.com-Banner-10022019-NLCSBound2019-editorial-slc)\n\nThe Cardinals were faced with elimination once again Wednesday, and once again they made sure their season was not going to end. They did so emphatically and set the tone from the first at-bats, when
But the Cardinals didn’t stop there. They scored as many runs (13) by the third inning as they had in the previous four games of the series combined.\n\n“You understand that 10 runs in the first is huge, but this is playoff baseball,” Wong said. “Anything can happen. So we wanted to continue to add on, keep chipping away. Around the seventh, you had a taste that this was it.”\n\nBefore starter
High-leverage relievers
\n\nAfter three years of missing the playoffs, the Cardinals won the National League Central title, but it wasn’t enough just to get to the postseason. They expected to win, too.\n\n“We did expect this,” Wainwright said. “When we came here, we expected to win today. That’s the thing. Our expectations go beyond just getting to the postseason.”\n\n“That’s what this organization’s all about,”