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PITTSBURGH -- Down to his final strike and his team trailing by a run with two outs in the ninth, St. Louis pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter told himself to just find a pitch he could handle.When the fastball from closer Tony Watson ended up right down the middle and not up and away as Watson hoped, Carpenter pounced. His solo homer -- a major league record 15th by a St. Louis pinch-hitter this season -- tied it and sent a jolt through the Cardinals. A home run each from Randal Grichuk and Jhonny Peralta followed, and St. Louis rallied for a stunning 9-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night.Weve got a team that I think the best way to describe it is a dangerous team, Carpenter said. Weve got a team that I dont think anybody wants to match up with, especially in a postseason scenario. Its a fun team to play on. We never quit, and tonight was a good example of it.St. Louis blew an early five-run lead and the Pirates were a pitch away from ending a seven-game losing streak when Watsons 0-2 fastball turned into Carpenters 18th home run. An All-Star two years ago as a setup man who moved into the closer role when Mark Melancon was traded to Washington at the deadline, Watson gave up as many homers in the ninth as he did during the entire 2015 season.Were not playing good ball and to go out there and (have) guys fight back and be a strike away and serve up four more runs, its tough to swallow, Watson (2-4) said after his third blown save since replacing Melancon.Yadier Molina went 4 for 5, including a first-inning grand slam for St. Louis. Mike Mayers (1-1) tossed a scoreless eighth for the win, and Seung-Hwan Oh worked around a solo homer to Jung Ho Kang in the ninth for his 16th save.The Cardinals finished with five home runs in all, including Matt Adams 436-foot drive over the seats in right field that plopped into the Allegheny River on the bounce. The comeback allowed St. Louis to remain a game in front of the New York Mets for the second wild card in the National League.Im speechless, St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. Just, I love how this team competes, right down to the last out. Having a guy like (Carpenter), who hadnt felt quite right, to be able to come into that situation, and then right after that ... Im at a loss.Jung Ho Kang had two homers for Pittsburgh and Jordy Mercer hit a two-run double in the fifth as the Pirates took advantage of some sloppy defense by the Cardinals to overcome an early five-run deficit. Watsons implosion, however, sent Pittsburgh to its eighth straight defeat.The Pirates came in reeling during their longest skid in two years, one that dropped them to the fringe of playoff contention. Opponents have outscored them 47-22 during the slide, including a 12-6 setback on Monday night in which the Cardinals simply overpowered Pittsburghs struggling pitching staff.It looked like more of the same early on Tuesday. The Cardinals loaded the bases against Ryan Vogelsong and Molina cleared them with his first grand slam since 2012, the 25th straight game the Cardinals have homered, a club record.MARTINEZ FINALLY ARRIVESSt. Louis rookie outfielder Jose Martinez made his long-awaited major league debut when he entered as a pinch-hitter in the seventh. The 28-year-old son of former major leaguer Carlos Cafe Martinez grounded out to third in his first plate appearance after more than a decade in the minors.It was good to see him get that chance, Matheny said. This is a good day for him. Long time coming.TRAINING ROOMCardinals: RF Stephen Piscotty was initially held out of the lineup to give his aching left wrist a breather. Piscotty took a pitch off the wrist on Monday. Postgame X-rays were negative and Piscotty doubled as a pinch-hitter in the eighth.Pirates: Pittsburgh held C Francisco Cervelli out of the lineup a day after he experienced discomfort in his left hand trying to block a pitch.UP NEXTCardinals: Mike Leake returns to the rotation after a stay on the disabled list while battling a case of the shingles. Leake is 9-5 with a 3.28 ERA in his career against Pittsburgh but is 1-2 with a 5.71 ERA this season.Pirates: Rookie Jameson Taillon will face the Cardinals for the first time in the series finale. The 24-year-old has a 2.80 ERA over his last 10 starts and pitched six innings of one-run ball last week against Milwaukee. Cheap NHL Jerseys Fast Shipping . The team also announced Tuesday that the Braves will wear a commemorative patch on the right sleeve during the season. The patch, shaped like home plate, carries the number 715, Aarons autograph and a "40th Anniversary" banner. Cheap Boston Bruins Jerseys China . Oaklands loss to Seattle clinched the ALs best record for the Red Sox with one day to spare in the regular season. "I think everybody was kind of watching," catcher David Ross said. "Demp (Ryan Dempster) came out before he went to the bullpen and was just yelling that they lost. http://www.cheaphockeychina.com/ . "I dont know that were close," said general manager Alex Anthopoulos. "I just think, right now, the acquisition cost just doesnt work for us right now. I dont know if I can quantify how far off or things like that that they might be but I would say we continue to have dialogue. Wholesale Hockey Jerseys . Pence singled in the winning run with no outs in the ninth inning to give the Giants a 7-6 victory over the San Diego Padres on Sunday. Discount NHL Jerseys . John Tavares, Thomas Vanek and Kyle Okposo were also being counted on to slow down sizzling Rangers forward Rick Nash. That plan didnt go so well early. It doesnt take much to set off a Pakistani fan. The recent movements on the Test-rankings table have provided plenty of fodder for discourse, to say the least. The irony of it is that in trying to discredit others, Pakistanis often fall back upon the same tropes that have been used against them, talking about discrepancies between teams home and away records, and the quality of opposition faced.Yet for those within the dressing room, that equivalence is considered false, particularly the notion that Pakistan playing in the UAE is like any other team playing at home. According to one Pakistani player, you can consider it the same the day a Pakistani team gets the crowd and control over the pitches that other Asian nations do. According to another, you can consider it truly Pakistans home the day another team cant put out their best XI for a home Test because of visa issues. There have even, finally, been some public utterances about the difficulty of being nomads.But if Pakistan really want to prove their point, all they have to do is point towards their home ODI record. Of course thats not exactly likely to happen since many of those complaining were responsible for that record.If you leave out the current series against West Indies, since moving to the Emirates in 2009, Pakistan have played 12 bilateral ODI series there (against nations from among the top nine), winning three. Outside of the Emirates the record reads: won seven, lost ten. The most obvious divergence was under Misbah-ul-Haq, when Pakistan won just two of their seven home series and four of the eight series away from home against teams in the top nine, including historic wins in India and South Africa. While the rest of the world uses home ODIs to induct new players and pad up their records, Pakistanis have struggled to even compete in them.In a way, the recently concluded series against West Indies was a window into an alternative world, where Pakistan are like any other team in the world, stronger at home. Of course, if the ICC rankings did weigh home and away results differently from each other, as they ought to, maybe Pakistan wouldnt be struggling to qualify for the World Cup right now.The reasons for Pakistans record are pretty obvious. Their wins were led by their bowling attack. From the 2011 World Cup through the 2015 one, no team had a better economy rate than Pakistan, and their collective bowling average was in the top tier too. This was due to the efforts of Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez, and to a lesser extent Shahid Afridi. But spin wasnt the only reason for it. In 2013, when Pakistan played more ODIs outside Asia than they did in it, both Junaid Khan and Mohammad Irfan averaged under 23 with the ball. (Note: all these stats are against the top nine ODI nations only.)But now, devoid of pace bowlers of that level (the occasional Wahab Riaz or Mohammad Amir spell aside), bereft of the spin trio, and without Misbah to handle it all, Pakistans bowling has fallen off a cliff. Whatever they have gained on the batting front has failed to compensate for their bowling deficiencies.The ODI game in general has, over the past decade and a bit, gone from treating bowlers as equal citizens to considering them glorified bowling machines. And it is here that Pakistan wont be able to catch up, regardless of whether Babar Azam becomes the most complete batsman Pakistan have had in 20 years or whether Umar Akmal reaches his destiny.The reductionist viewpoint would blame it on individuals or selection matters, because trying to scratch the surface requires too much effort. The most common prescription heard is that Pakistans batting needs to attack relentlessly, like other teams batting line-ups do. This, of course, is followed by a smug look from the deliverer of that insight, as if no one else had thought of it before. In response to this wisdom, all one has to do is point to a simple stat: in the third ODI in England, the one with more broken records than a vintage vinyl shop, each of the English top eight had T20 strikke rates in excess of 125, while only two of the Pakistanis (Sharjeel Khan and Sarfraz Ahmed) did by contrast.dddddddddddd So even if Pakistan attack relentlessly, will it change much?In the last two years of the Royal London One Day Cup, over 13% of all completed matches had first-innings scores in excess of 325. In the premier 50-overs competition in Australia last season, that number was 13% as well. In Pakistans national one-day competition in 2015-16 it was under 6%.Pakistan are stuck in an era the world has moved on from. Without any scrutiny, thanks to the absence of international cricket at home, cricket in Pakistan has been damaged on a level that is evident only now. And that really is the true cost of Pakistans exile. The ecosystem of cricket - and this includes everything from the sponsors the board attracts to the understanding of the game among the cricket-following fraternity - has stagnated as cricket has been outsourced. (Thats why former commentators take offence to the standard of local broadcasting being compared to the 1980s, saying, It was so much better than this in the 80s.) Nowhere is this more obvious than in the tools the players use.Much has been made in recent months of modern bats, but its a discussion Pakistanis cant even participate in. In a TV show last year Saqlain Mushtaq spoke of how the finances available to Pakistani cricketers do not even suffice for them to have the diet and nutrition that athletes needs, let alone extend to enabling them to buy the equipment they require. Current Pakistani players tell of using bats made in England or India and then realising they have to change their games - because its the first time they can actually time the ball for boundaries, thanks to these bats, rather than having to thrash at everything. One player said he had to learn the art of batting afresh this year just because he finally has bats similar (but not the same, it is pointed out) to those used by players from the richer boards. Long gone are the days when Sachin Tendulkar would ask Wasim Akram for bats from Sialkot.And when asked how many players from outside the national team use such bats, the answer is: never more than a handful. Big bats are just not available to Pakistanis, and even if they were, they would struggle to afford them. And then we wonder where all the big hitters went.There is a living embodiment of the stagnation of Pakistan cricket. Located at one end of the Gaddafi Stadium are the offices of the PCB; at the other end is a stand that has been under construction since 2008. Or to put it another way, since construction on that stand began, Rio de Janeiro bid for the Olympic Games, won the bid, invested close to US$30 billion in infrastructure and stadiums, dealt with the public fallout from that spending, had multiple changes in government, hosted the Games and the Paralympics, and now doesnt know what to do with its white elephants. In all that time, construction on that stand at the Gaddafi Stadium has still not been completed. And this, you have to remember, is in the city and the stadium seen by the rest of Pakistan as the one that is given preferential treatment.The base salary of a player in Pakistans national team is barely a third of what their New Zealand or Sri Lankan counterparts earn, let alone what the Big Three offer. And that base salary in turn is extravagant compared to what Pakistani domestic players earn.Thus the achievements of Pakistan, particularly the Test team, need to be seen in another light. Maybe comparing them to Leicester would be unfair on both parties, but there is some equivalence to be drawn with Diego Simeones Atletico Madrid - another team with far fewer resources and much less talent than their rivals; one that momentarily reached the top before that was taken away from them by those with far deeper pockets.But even Atletico had the Calderon. Even they were no nomads. ' ' '