As many times as he gets asked, Cardinals closer Jason Motte still has no perfect answer for how St. Louis found a way to win at Washington after trailing 6-0 and get back to the NL championship series.
"These guys just prove what big hearts they have and how much they go out there and work their butts off," said Motte, Friday night's winning pitcher.
"Someone asked me last night how we keep doing it, and I said, 'I don't know; maybe we're just stubborn. We just don't give up.' That's kind of how you have to be."
St. Louis manager Mike Matheny will watch the game again, once things slow down, so he can truly appreciate just what his Cardinals accomplished in beating the Nationals - the team with baseball's best record this season.
San Francisco skipper Bruce Bochy doesn't need another look to know how impressive the reigning World Series champions' ninth-inning comeback was for a 9-7 victory in the nation's capital.
Bochy's team had its own remarkable rally that's not quite as fresh as the Cardinals' feat: Three road wins at Cincinnati to advance after dropping the first two games of the division series at home to the Reds.
The last two World Series winners sure are showing their championship mettle in mid-October.
They will face off in Game 1 of the NLCS tonight at San Francisco's AT&T Park. Left-hander Madison Bumgarner gets the ball for the Giants at home against 6-foot-5 right-hander Lance Lynn.
Bumgarner, a 16-game winner this year, lost Game 2 of the NL division series here to Cincinnati.
"I felt good last time; things just didn't go my way," Bumgarner said.
"That's the way this game is."
While the Giants became the eighth team to come back from a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-five series and first to do it on the road, the Cardinals earned the biggest comeback ever in a winner-take-all post-season game, according to STATS LLC.
"It really hasn't sunk in," Matheny said after an all-night, cross-country trip to the Bay Area. "I see a knockdown-drag out ahead of us. I'm certain Major League Baseball has to be very pleased with the calibre of baseball that's happened so far in this postseason. And I don't see any reason why the excitement wouldn't continue. We're looking at two well-rounded teams."
