ST. LOUIS -- You just can't kill them. You just can't kill those St. Louis Cardinals.

They lost Adam Wainwright for the season before they'd played an inning. That couldn't kill them.

They were 10½ games out with 31 to play. That couldn't kill them.

Their bullpen saddled them with 13 crushing walk-off losses. And that couldn't do them in, either.

So here they are, still breathing, still playing. Of course they are. Here they are, heading for a dramatic Game 5 in Philadelphia on Friday night. Of course they are.

And here they are, after a season-saving, come-from-behind 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday, still laughing at all the dopes from coast to coast who thought they were six feet under when, in fact, their fun was just beginning.

Asked Wednesday night, after Game 4 of this still-very-much-in-progress National League Division Series, how many times he estimated his team had been pronounced dead by the proper authorities, Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday reacted like a man who wasn't sure he could even count that high.

"Let's see," he said. "Probably every day in August. And several in September. And yesterday.

David Freese hit a two-run double in the fourth inning and a two-run blast to center in the sixth. Jeff Curry/US Presswire

"Anddddddd," Holliday couldn't help but add, "today."

Yeah, couldn't possibly overlook "today," could he? Because the game they'd just finished winning was perfect fodder for those proper authorities. If the Cardinals' whole M.O. this season was to make sure nothing came easy, then Game 4 of this fabulous National League Division Series just fit right into the program.

After all, if you want to make people nervous, what better way than to fall behind by two runs -- after FIVE pitches -- in a game where losing meant sayonara? But little did the Phillies know the Cardinals clearly had them right where they wanted them.

"Hey, that's what we're here for -- entertainment purposes," laughed Lance Berkman, after the Cardinals had climbed out of the intensive-care ward one more time. "I've always said, whether you're really good or really bad, at least be entertaining, so people will talk about you one way or the other. So that's all we're trying to do here."

Well, we appreciate it. Let's make that clear -- because whoever it is who's writing this team's scripts, they've got a future working with Aaron Sorkin. So for entertainment purposes, the Cardinals had to make sure they didn't just get themselves two runs behind early to any old team or any old pitcher. No, they had to get themselves two runs behind against the official best team in baseball.

And they had to get themselves two runs behind against their longtime nemesis, Roy Oswalt -- a man with a 1.29 career postseason ERA in St. Louis, a man who had pulled the plug on their season once before (Game 6, 2005) in this very town, a man who had made 10 career postseason starts and taken a loss in none of them.

So the boos and the nervous fidgeting rattling through all 47,071 occupants of Busch Stadium was perfectly understandable. But obviously, these folks had simply forgotten the essential facts of their favorite team's 2011 life:

You just can't kill these Cardinals.