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ST. LOUIS -- All season long, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny set 10 games over .500 as a target for his team.St. Louis, on its 10th try, finally reached that mark with a 10-4 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday, but the Cardinals still missed the playoffs for the first time since 2010.Matt Carpenter homered, and Randal Grichuk keyed a six-run seventh-inning with a two-run double to lead St. Louis to its fourth win in a row. But the Cardinals (86-76) were eliminated while still on the field when San Francisco (87-75) beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-1 and earned the second NL wild card.Thats the danger when its not in your hands anymore, Matheny said. Our focus was to take care of our own business, and we did that.St. Louis starter Adam Wainwright allowed two runs and six hits in six innings. He did not get a decision.To miss the playoffs by one game, thats tough to swallow, Wainwright said. You think about how many times you couldve won games or just one or two games, and you didnt. It gets you to thinking back a little bit.St. Louis outfielder Matt Holliday was briefly brought into the game to play left field in the ninth inning. He was given a standing ovation and taken out before the first pitch. The Cardinals announced Friday that they plan to decline his 2017 option and allow him to become a free agent.How special was that? Matheny said. What instigated it was the response of the fans, so badly they wanted to see him one more time.St. Louis was a big league-best 100-62 last year but lost to the Chicago Cubs in the division series. The Cardinals never led the NL Central at any point this season and finished with a losing record at home (38-43) for the first time since 1999.Anytime you dont win the World Series, its disappointing, infielder Aledmys Diaz?said. But we kept coming and never let down.To get close, it definitely makes it a little more disappointing, Carpenter said. But thats the nature of the business. Theres only [one] team that doesnt have this day.After making the playoffs in three straight seasons, Pittsburgh dropped from 98-64 to 78-83.Yadier Molina had three hits for the Cardinals. Stephen Piscotty singled in Molina to break a 4-4 tie in the seventh. Carpenter hit his 21st homer of the season off Antonio Bastardo for a 4-2 lead.?Jonathan Broxton (4-2) won despite allowing two runs in one inning of relief.Juan Nicasio (10-7) gave up three runs without recording an out in the seventh.?Andrew McCutchen hit a two-run single in the fifth to give his team a 2-1 lead.Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle is ready to move on from the disappointing campaign.Forty-one years in the game, and I honor the game, I respect the game, Hurdle said. And Ive also gotten very good on closing the book when its time to close the book.Pittsburgh catcher Eric Fryer had two hits in a losing cause.I think down the stretch, we definitely competed, Fryer said. Theres a lot of optimism here with a lot of young arms.PACK THE PLACEA crowd of 44,615, the 19th sellout of the season, watched the final game.St. Louis drew 3,444,490, second to the Los Angeles Dodgers in major league home attendance. It was the fifth-highest attendance total in franchise history and the 13th successive year that the team has drawn at least three million. Nike React Cheap Online . It was the kind of score that might make everyone else wonder which course he was playing. Except that Graeme McDowell saw the whole thing. Crouched behind the 10th green at Sheshan International, McDowell looked over at the powerful American and said, "Ive probably seen 18 of the best drives Ive seen all year in the last two days. Nike React Shoes Cheap .com) - The Montreal Canadiens embark on their first road trip of the season as they head out west to battle the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night. http://www.cheapnikereact.net/ . -- Claudio Bieler hadnt scored since early September, and not from the run of play since mid-July. Nike React Cheap China . With his new coach and six-time Grand Slam singles champion Boris Becker watching him during an official match for the first time, Djokovic appeared tentative early against the Slovakian player, who often appeared content to keep the ball in play. Cheap Nike React Shoes . LOUIS -- Attorneys for the St. Misbah-ul-Haq has hailed Pakistans bowlers for the effort they have put in to win matches on the slow and batting-friendly pitches they have often had to play on in the UAE. Pakistans 133-run win in the second Test against West Indies in Abu Dhabi was their eighth win in their last 11 Tests in their adopted home.Thanks to almighty Allah. It wasnt easy, Misbah said, after Pakistan sealed their tenth series win under his captaincy. I mean, on wickets like that, getting 20 wickets is always a challenge, and I think the bowlers just lived up to the expectations.They worked really hard, especially Yasir Shah [who had match figures of 10 for 210], and the fast bowlers also contributed well on this pitch, and I think that was a big achievement, getting 20 wickets on this pitch.Pakistan have developed a reputation for playing dour, attritional cricket under Misbah, and he said it was a necessary template to follow given the conditions the team played most of its matches in.I believe in, first, you just go there and assess the conditions and then, really, within your resources, [work out] how youre going to conduct your gameplan, Misbah said. If you just stay in your limits and execute your plans according to your strengths, then no matter what the conditions are, you could be successful.In the UAE especially, you cannot really change much about your planning, because [of the] slow pitches, and its really tough to get wickets here, and you have to grind oppositions sometimes. Thats simply the format you have to follow.But when youre playing in conditions like we did in England and were going to [in] New Zealand and Australia, obviously we need to change that. There the conditions are different. Were looking forward [to the tours], and obviously we have to play that kind of cricket there to win.The numbers support Misbahs contention. Teams that have won Tests in the UAE in the last 10 years have, on average, bowled 186 overs per match. In the rest of the world, they have had to bowl only 156 overs on average. And though West Indies lost booth in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they batted for more than 200 overs in each match.dddddddddddd They have only managed this two other times in 17 Tests since the start of 2015.Despite their record on the slow UAE pitches, Misbah said Pakistan would prefer playing on surfaces that offered a little more help for their spinners. Our spinners are our strength and with Yasir being a world-class bowler, we expect to have turning and spinning wickets but this pitch had nothing for the bowlers, he said. Today it was fifth day and still was flat and didnt do much but still our bowlers worked so hard to take 20 wickets and its a big achievement.Yasir bowled 67.4 overs in the match and got through far more bowling than the left-arm orthodox spinners Zulfiqar Babar (43) and Mohammad Nawaz (14). Misbah said this was because there was little help in the pitch for fingerspinners.In the first innings fast bowlers had to bowl more because at some stage there was a chance of reverse-swing and thats why spinners werent utilitied much, he said. Yasir, being a wristspinner, was helpful but both the left-armers didnt bowl much because of the pitch condition.Given the workloads the bowlers, Yasir in particular, got through, Misbah said it was natural that he didnt enforce the follow-on despite having a first-innings lead of 228.In every innings, you are fielding for over 100 overs, and I think bowling again with tired bodies will be tough, he said. Youve got to give your bowlers some time as its tough for fast bowlers in such conditions to bowl and you cant have Yasir Shah bowling 40 overs straight in two innings.You might get this but then again for the next match youve got to have a complete new XI. So understanding the conditions, weather [is important] and chasing 150 runs in fifth day will be tough, and that is the reason I didnt enforce the follow-on. Rather than pushing our bowlers, you bat and grind the opponent in full. ' ' '