Cardinals send Padres packing

The St. Louis Cardinals avoided a trip back tothe West Coast on Sunday night by eliminating the San Diego Padres from baseball's post-season.

The Cardinals broke open a tight game with four runs in the sixth inning to send the Padres home with a 6-2 win.

"I'm so pleased because it's been such a rough year," said Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, who improved to 20-5 in the division series overall. "We've popped champagne twice, and the goal is to pop it four times."

The Cardinals won the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and will face the Mets in the National League Championship Series, beginningon Wednesday night at Shea Stadium in New York.

"They've got a great club," Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter said of the Mets. "We're going to celebrate tonight and worry about them [Monday]."

Carpenter, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, rebounded from a sluggish start to lead the Cardinals' charge.

Carpenter (2-0), who won Tuesday's opener 5-1, threw seven solid innings, allowing only two runs and three walks while striking out five Padres batters.

"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."

Cardinals escape jams

The Cardinals escaped trouble in each of the final two innings,and came away winners when closer Adam Wainwright induced Dave Roberts to ground out with two men on base. Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols stepped on first to record the final out and begin the celebration.

With the score tied 2-2 in the sixth, Juan Encarnacion gave St. Louis the eventual winning run, tripling to deep right off former Blue Jays pitcher Woody Williams, scoring Pujols.

Third baseman Scott Spiezio then brought home Encarnacion on a single to centre, giving St. Louis a 4-2 lead.

Spiezio replaced the injured Scott Rolen, who complained of shoulder fatigue. Rolen was hitting just .091 through the first three game of this series.

The Cardinals added two more runs in the sixth to round out the scoring.

Padres punchless

The Padres suffered through their second consecutive post-season hitting drought. Even with a win in Game 3, the punchless Padres were 2 for 32 (.063) with runners in scoring position.

"This was a pretty good year," Padres manager Bruce 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."

San Diego now sports a pitiful 1-9 playoff record against the Cardinals, who also swept the Padres in the opening round of the 1996 post-season.

Both teams took advantage of base-loaded situations in the first inning to score two runs.

The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the top half of their inning after Carpenter walked Russell Branyan, which scored Brian Giles.

Mike Cameron then grounded into a fielder's choice to second, bringing home Adrian Gonzalez to give the Padres a 2-0 edge.

The Cardinals replied in the bottom half of the first with two runs.

Second baseman Ronnie Belliard hit a bases-loaded single to score Preston Wilson and Jim Edmonds.

But Belliard killed any chance for the Cardinals to put up more runs in the inning when he was thrown out trying tostretch his single into a double.