Good times rolling again for Cardinals, who KO Braves

• The Cardinals eliminated the Braves in the NL wild card game
• St. Louis' 88 regular-season wins were the fewest among 2012 playoff teams.
• They move on to face the Washington Nationals beginning Sunday.

ATLANTA -- The other guy always seems to have leverage on the St. Louis Cardinals.

Down 10½ games to the Atlanta Braves for the wild card in 2011, the Cardinals rallied to get into the postseason.

Down to their last out in Game 6 of the World Series, they won.

Up against a pitcher Friday whose team had not lost in 23 straight games he started, St. Louis prevailed.

Matched against a retiring legend and a crowd whipped into a frenzy by controversial calls, the Cardinals had an answer.

Indeed, the Cardinals' opponents always seem to have more pluses on its side of the ledger - until the final out, that is.

"It's almost the same feeling we had last year, we're never giving up," said shortstop Rafael Furcal. "It's the same attitude. As soon as you sign up with this team you get the attitude, the winning stuff. People know how we play.

"Last year was crazy with this fighting, fighting. We are in the postseason again this time and who knows. You never know with these guys."

The Cardinals beat the Braves 6-3 in the National League's one-game playoff here Friday, a tumultuous event that saw play halted when the sellout crowd of 51,631 rained debris on the field in the eighth inning because of an umpire's call.

The Cardinals were not deterred by the melee. They continued to play and were not sucked into the emotional caldron. That's what they do.

The Braves fell apart and were a different team Friday. They led the National League in defense, yet committed three errors. The Cardinals,meanwhile, were the same steady team Friday. They played it like a regular season game and didn't fold.

"We stayed in control, we weren't trying to do too much,"said right fielder Carlos Beltran. "We were approaching the game like we did the whole season, one at bat at a time, one pitch at a time."

St. Louis, which won 88 games in the regular season, the fewest for any playoff team, moves on to the National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals for a best-of-five series that starts Sunday in St. Louis.

Who wants to bet against St. Louis and this vibe of invincibility?

"We had control of that game for a long time, so it wasn't like we made a wild comeback at the end like we did last year, but I will say the confidence this team has from last year really carried over," said Lance Berkman. "We just believed we were going to win these games and it's helpful."

In the middle of the champagne soaked St. Louis clubhouse, first baseman Allen Craig would not claim, as so many athletes do, that last year was last year and this team will make its own way.

This is one long song for the Cardinals.

"I don't see why not, why can't we do it again," Craig said."We got in the playoffs, we won this, you can't count anything out with this group."

The Cardinals were 3-4 against Washington in the regular season, and they will be underdogs to the Nationals in the playoffs, just as they were Friday against the Braves. Atlanta had won 23 consecutive games started by pitcher Kris Medlen, a major league record, but St.Louis brushed that aside. Kyle Lohse was 0-4 in the postseason, but the Cardinals dismissed that statistic, too.

"After today it feels a little bit like last year, but we have a long way to go," said catcher Yadier Molina.

The game, with its near-riot in the stands in the eighth and the torrent of debris that flew following the umpire's call on a disputed fly ball, was not what the Braves envisioned as a sendoff for retiring star Chipper Jones. Berkman thinks the chaos might be something the Cardinals could find memorable in their own way.

"Hopefully (this game) will be memorable for another reason, maybe the start of another postseason run for us," he said. "You don't see something like that happen very often."

Well, with the Cardinals you do.