None of that showed up in the price before first pitch, but it showed up on the field. St. Louis had dropped the first two of this set by a combined 20-8 and looked overmatched doing it. This one played very differently.
The Cardinals jumped on the board early, scoring 3 in the 2nd and adding 2 more in the 4th to build a cushion. Baltimore clawed back with a 3-run 7th to make it interesting, but St. Louis had already banked enough — the Orioles' answer fell a run short. It was the kind of response St. Louis needed after getting run over 13-1 to open the series and needing extras drama to lose game two 8-7.
Baltimore is still very much alive in the AL Wild Card race and came in having taken the first two games of this series, so a split at Busch Stadium is a fine outcome for a club with bigger fish to fry down the stretch. For St. Louis, buried in the standings and now piecing together a rotation on the fly, snapping a 5-game slide against a fringe contender is a small, real thing to hang onto.
Neither team walks away with much changed in the standings. But for a Cardinals club that had lost 5 straight walking in, taking the finale after dropping the first two says something about a lineup that hasn't stopped competing even with the roster falling apart around it.