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Detroit Tigers

Adam Wainwright, Cardinals have been on brink before

Steve Gardner, USA TODAY Sports
  • Cardinals face elimination against Nationals after losing Game 4 of NLDS
  • St. Louis won four elimination games last season en route to World Series title
  • Adam Wainwright is back on mound and veteran to postseason pressure
Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday walks back to the dugout after a strikeout in Game 4 of the National League Division Series against the Nationals.

WASHINGTON β€” During their improbable run to the World Series title last season, the St. Louis Cardinals won all four of their elimination games.

Although they failed to close out the Washington Nationals in Game 4 of their playoff series Thursday night, there was still plenty of optimism in an otherwise somber Cardinals clubhouse.

"If there's something we have done real good this year has been after a tough loss, we have been able to bounce back as a team," outfielder Carlos Beltran said. "We are just going to come tomorrow the mentality of going out there and scoring runs and winning the game."

After putting up a total of 20 runs in winning Games 2 and 3, the Cardinals could manage just three hits in the 2-1 defeat.

"This was a really competitive game. We played pretty good defense and the pitching was good," said center fielder Jon Jay. "We just couldn't break through."

Things may not get any easier when the Cards face the Nationals' best pitcher, 20-game winner Gio Gonzalez.

"That's a good left-handed arm out there," said second baseman Daniel Descalso. We've got our work cut out for us."

One thing the Cardinals have that the Nats don't is playoff experience after their title run last season. How much of a difference could that make in Game 5? "Obviously it helps, but this year is a new year and we're going to have to find a new way to do it," Jay said.

Descalso agrees. "We've been in this spot before -- a Game 5 winner-take-all game -- and so we're not panicked over here," he said. "We've got Adam Wainwright on the mound, a great big-game pitcher, so we feel pretty confident in him."

Wainwright was a 20-game winner and finished second in the NL Cy Young voting in 2010, but he missed being a part of the Cards' championship run last year due to season-ending elbow surgery.

The 31-year-old pitched 5 2/3 innings in the NLDS opener in St. Louis, giving up just one earned run on three hits and striking out 10 – the most by a Cardinal pitcher in the postseason since Bob Gibson in 1968.

Now, he'll come back with a chance to pitch the defending champs into the next round.

"Of course, I wish we'd have won tonight," Wainwright said. "But it's every pitcher's dream, every competitor's dream to go into huge moments like that. I look forward to the challenge."

In the Cardinal clubhouse after Thursday's loss he was asked when he started his mental preparation for the elimination game. The answer: "A few minutes ago."

Wainwright is no stranger to the big stage. He was on the mound – as a closer – for the final out of the 2006 World Series when the Cardinals closed out the Detroit Tigers in five games.

"I can look at big moments I've been in before and build off that and dig deep," he said. "(But) if you get caught up thinking about too much in the past, you're not living in the now enough. I'll be ready."

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