1 win short: Cards end 5-year postseason run

ST. LOUIS — It all ended so abruptly for the Cardinals, who, after falling short in their nine previous attempts to move 10 games above .500, finally got there on Sunday only to find the mark ultimately inconsequential. That’s because for the third time in five seasons, the Giants knocked the Cardinals out of the postseason.

San Francisco, which eliminated the Cardinals in the National League Championship Series in 2012 and ’14, bumped them a bit earlier this year. The Cardinals’ 10-4 victory over the Pirates became meaningless the moment the Giants’ 7-1 win over the Dodgers went final. With it, the Cardinals became the ones left on the outside of what has been a three-team NL Wild Card race since mid-September.

The Giants and Mets each finished with 87 victories. The Cardinals tallied 86.

“That’s the danger when you get down to this, and it’s not in our hands anymore,” manager Mike Matheny said. “Because it truly was dependent on other teams. We couldn’t help but look up there [at the out-of-town 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 played from behind all week. They fell a game behind the Giants with their loss last Monday and never made it up, despite …

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