In 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals eliminated the San Diego Padres from the playoffs for the second year in a row. 11-year-old-me was disappointed but hopeful the team would be back in the postseason sooner than later. Unfortunately, it would be the latter. In 2020, the Padres finally returned to the playoffs, but I groaned upon seeing that the Padres would face the Cardinals once again. If you don't know, there's this 100% real thing called the San Diego Sports Curse (there's even a Wikipedia article about it!) that has caused my beloved hometown to become the largest city in the United States without a major sports championship. In addition to many other heartbreaks, I suspect that the SDSC is the primary reason why the Padres have been unable to beat the Cardinals in the playoffs. Sure enough, my fears appeared to be justified at first- Dinelson Lamet and Mike Clevinger injured themselves in their final starts and were left off the Wild Card series roster. I thought to mys...