St. Louis – Standing on a chair in a raucous clubhouse, Albert Pujols sprayed champagne in every direction.
Teammates and owners got soaked – no one was immune.
The tension from Chris Carpenter’s shaky beginning, the angst of the St. Louis Cardinals’ late-season swoon, had evaporated.
They’re going to the National League Championship Series for the third straight season.
“From Day One, I kept saying this team’s got what it takes to get to the World Series,” Scott Spiezio said. “We’re a step closer.”
Carpenter recovered from a bad first inning to gain his second victory of the series, Juan Encarnacion hit a tiebreaking triple and the Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres 6-2 on Sunday night to win their best-of-five first-round NL playoff series 3-1.
St. Louis nearly wasted a seven-game lead in the final two weeks of the regular season but rebounded against the Padres, a team the Cardinals swept in the first round in 2005.
Escaping trouble in each of the last two innings, the Cardinals sealed the win when Adam Wainwright got Dave Roberts on a groundout with two on. Pujols stepped on the first-base bag for the final out to set off the first postseason celebration at the new Busch Stadium, which opened this year.
“I didn’t blame anybody who didn’t think we had a very good shot,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. “I’m so pleased because it’s been such a rough year. We’ve popped champagne twice, and the goal is to pop it four times.”
The Cardinals open the next round Wednesday night at the New York Mets, who won the season series from St. Louis 4-2.
“They’ve got a great club,” Carpenter said. “We’re going to celebrate tonight and worry about them tomorrow.”
While the Cardinals won the NL pennant in 2004 before getting swept by the Boston Red Sox, the Cardinals lost last year’s NL championship to the Houston Astros in six games.
San Diego manager Bruce Bochy, whose team won the division for the second straight year, dropped to 1-9 in the postseason against the Cardinals, who also swept the Padres in the opening round in 1996.
San Diego was 2-for-32 (.063) with runners in scoring position in the series.
“This was a pretty good year,” Bochy said. “Sure, it’s disappointing the way it ended.
“We didn’t score a lot of runs in the series, and that was the difference.”
Carpenter, who won Tuesday’s opener 5-1, fell behind 2-0 in the first inning when he walked Russell Branyan with the bases loaded and Mike Cameron followed two pitches later with an RBI grounder.
“I think he was a little bit too pumped up in the first inning,” Pujols said.
But that was all the NL West champions got off Carpenter.
He got Josh Barfield to hit into an inning-ending forceout.
“We did have a good chance there to break the game open,” Bochy said. “We just didn’t deliver.”
Carpenter followed with six innings of shutout, five-hit ball, leaving him at 2-0 with a 2.02 ERA in the series and 4-0 with a 2.10 ERA in five postseason starts.
La Russa was especially pleased Carpenter prevented San Diego from building a big lead in the first.
“That was classic Chris, because at the end of the inning they had two runs and not four or five,” La Russa said. “Then he started pounding the strike zone.”
Because La Russa pitched him Sunday instead of saving him for a possible fifth game, he likely won’t be available until the third game of the NLCS.
San Diego’s Woody Williams, who took the loss, allowed four runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings.
