Cardinals Beat Astros, Pull Into Wild Card Tie After Phillies Crush Braves

But the Braves have struggled against the NL leaders all season, compiling a 6-11 record against Philadelphia that includes zero wins since the All-Star break.

Game date, time: 7 p.m. ET, Wednesday, September 29, 2011

The Houston Astros might be the worst team in baseball -- and they have the most losses (105) of any team in a single season since the 2005 Royals (106), so they’re in the running for the worst team since the 2003 Tigers -- but they’ve played the Cardinals tough in the first two games of the series.

Houston took the lead again in the fifth, but the advantage was short-lived. After loading the bases with no one out, the Astros squeaked across just one run on a Paredes double play.

Teheran is the Braves’ -- and maybe the majors’ -- top pitching prospect, and it shows you how the Braves are desperate to save their other relief pitchers for a possible wild-card clinching game Wednesday night in Atlanta.

If that situation continues through tomorrow’s action and the Cardinals and Braves wind up tied after 162 games, they will play a tiebreaker game on Thursday in St. Louis at 7 p.m. Central time.

The Cardinals couldn’t take advantage, though, squandering big chances in the late innings after coming from behind in the eighth inning. The Astros held on, and then broke through with a bloop and two misplayed bunts in the tenth inning, winning 5-4 to crush the Cardinals’ hopes of catching the Braves on Monday night.

That’s the downside to waiting so long to make a move in a race: a team has to play perfect baseball, and they also have to avoid baseball weirdness. The Cardinals lost on Monday because of a bloop and two bunts. Now they have two games left to make up a one-game deficit, when they could have been tied with a well-timed single in the late innings.

Baseball Fan A: So what do you think?

Baseball Fan B: I think the Red Sox might miss the playoffs!

Baseball Fan A: So what do you think?

Baseball Fan B: Cauldrons! Spinning yellow cauldrons!

Everything’s falling into place.

All we know for sure is that Monday and Tuesday will feature four vitally important National League games. And now there’s a pretty good chance that Wednesday’s games will matter, too.

To call it an unlikely ending is an understatement -- the Cardinals haven’t won a game like this in a decade, let alone one with such important playoff implications. From Chris Tunno, Cardinals media relations specialist:

Carpenter, who had was 2-0 with a 1.50 E.R.A. over his last three starts, a span in which the 36-year-old agreed to a two-year, $21 million contract extension, surrendered five hits, walked two and struck out five over seven innings before turning the game over to the bullpen.