Bucs offense falls flat after Kang’s early homer

ST. LOUIS — It will all come down to Game 162 for the Cardinals, who, with a 4-3, come-from-behind win over the Pirates at Busch Stadium, staved off potential Wild Card elimination on Saturday and set the stage for Adam Wainwright to possibly extend the season for another day.

With the Giants’ victory over the Dodgers on Saturday, St. Louis enters Sunday one game behind San Francisco for the second National League Wild Card spot. If the two teams were to finish with the same record, a tiebreaker game would be played in St. Louis on Monday. The Mets have already sealed their place as the host for next Wednesday’s Wild Card Game.

“This is what we live for as competitors: the big games,” said Wainwright. “I knew it would come down to the last day — it always does.”

Jedd Gyorko delivered the game-winning hit with his two-out, eighth-inning home run. It was his third home run in as many games and sealed the first 30-homer season by a Cardinal since 2012. The blast set the Cardinals up to claim their 22nd victory this season in games where they entered the eighth inning tied or trailing.

“We know we can always come back with the lineup we have and the ability to put runs on the board quickly,” Gyorko said. “These are exciting games, there’s no doubt about that. To be in a must-win situation, it’s fun to be out there.”

With a hole in their rotation, the Cardinals were uncertain about how they’d cobble together nine innings of coverage. They turned first to Michael Wacha, and then quickly to their bullpen after Wacha served up a three-run homer to Jung Ho Kang in the opening frame.

Manager Mike Matheny’s afternoon of reliever roulette began with Miguel Socolovich and ended with Seung Hwan Oh stranding two to collect his 19th save. Six Cardinals relievers combined to strike out 12, while allowing five hits over eight scoreless innings.

“We couldn’t scratch anything against their bullpen,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “They ran the gauntlet on us. They pitched well.”

That bought time for the Cardinals’ offense to peck away. St. Louis erased the three-run hole in the sixth, which opened with hits from Jhonny Peralta and Brandon Moss. A wild pitch scored one, an RBI single by pinch-hitter Matt Holliday plated another and Matt Carpenter’s sacrifice fly evened the game.

“I think this whole series, a lot of us treated it as a playoff series,” Cardinals outfielder Stephen Piscotty said. “We showed we can do it in these first two, and we’re …

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