St. Louis Cardinals score 20 runs in 2 games vs. the Nationals, which is good

It might not be good to score eight and 12 runs at a sitting when each game is worth less than a hundredth of the season. It might seem frustrating when they score one the next day, and you might be inclined to wonder why they can't save them for later.

In the postseason, though—I'll take every one of the last 20 runs the St. Louis Cardinals have scored. Especially the eight Wednesday, because even though Chris Carpenter is now 10-2 with an ERA of 2.88 in his postseason career, his scoreless start was so consistently almost-not-scoreless that I was almost surprised when I looked up at the scoreboard, near the end, and saw that it was 6-0.

In short series it seems, sometimes, like we're left with little more than generalities from the regular season that we can wield when we get nervous about things. The Cardinals are very good at scoring runs, which explains why they did it Tuesday and Wednesday, even though Wednesday's scoring was anchored by a home run from Pete Kozma, who is not good at scoring runs. Chris Carpenter is a great pitcher with a striking postseason record and so he won, even though he was either of two Michael Morse at-bats away from bringing the bullpen into another long-relief situation.

This is a good team, and they're a win in two tries away from another NLCS berth, and that's something they have a chance to do. But I have no idea how, in particular, they might do it.