Paul Goldschmidt and Marcell Ozuna combined to finish five of nine with three home runs and just one strikeout. All season long, the vibe has been that the Cardinals could go as far as these two power batters carry them. Their teammates put that theory to the test, combining to go four for 28 with 10 strikeouts.

The only other Cardinals with two hits were Yadier Molina and Tommy Edman, and they had just one of those between the two of them — an Edman double that was erased in the second inning — entering the eighth.

While we were on the other side of the shadow, counting the reasons the Cardinals’ season was coming to an end, the Cardinals were down in that dugout, speaking an entirely different language.

Before Molina’s eighth-inning, game-tying single tickled Freddie Freeman’s leather on its route to shallow right field, before second baseman Kolten Wong flipped his 0-for-four day with a ground-rule double to lead off the 10th, and before Molina brought Wong home with a game-ending sacrifice fly later that inning, the Cardinals believed these moments would come.

Every single time a hitter re-entered the dugout after a fruitless attempt to put good wood on a ball, mini intervention occurred.