ST. LOUIS — The Cardinals were officially eliminated in a way they so rarely lost.

What seemed inevitable during this homestand became irrevocable Friday night as the Cardinals were eliminated from the postseason race with eight games remaining in the regular season. The kings of close games saw their remote playoff chances end with a game that wasn’t that close at all.

The Washington Nationals took an early lead in the top of the first, pounced on starter Kyle Leahy and his limited pitch count for seven runs, and revved to a 9-1 victory at Busch Stadium. The dud was the Cardinals’ seventh loss in their past 10 games, and it dropped them to 75-79. Their tragic number was changed to “e” in the standing for eliminated because they cannot catch the San Diego Padres in the scramble for the final wild-card berth.

The Cardinals have not appeared in the playoffs since 2022.

Their absence from a fourth consecutive October is the longest streak of the 21st Century for the Cardinals, surpassing the three seasons from 2016 to 2018 that they missed the playoffs.

A few hours after his extension was announced by the Nationals, right-hander Cade Cavalli spun five scoreless innings and turned the shutout over to the bullpen to finish.

By the eighth, the Cardinals were subbing out starters because of the deficit.

The Cardinals cracked the shutout in the bottom of the eighth inning with some fundamentally productive outs. Nathan Church opened the inning with a double. He advanced to third on JJ Wetherholt’s fly out to center field, and he scored on Ivan Herrera’s groundout. The crowd, which had dwindled from the announced size of 25,855, cheered the arrival home of the Cardinals’ first run.

As part of St. Louis Blues night at the ballpark, the Cardinals wore the road Saturday uniforms. It was the third time in club history that they wore blue uniforms for a home game. It was the first time in those three home games in those uniforms that the results fit the color.

The crowd was left feeling blue.

Leahy has rocky, limited outing

With his first season in the rotation now coming officially to an end, Kyle Leahy pitched again with a pitch cap on his outing and rookie Cooper Hjerpe shouldering the leftover innings.

The target for the right-hander was around 45 pitches or a repeat of his previous outing as the Cardinals look to taper his workload. Leahy reached 61 pitches total, but it took that many to get through three innings. By the time he threw his final pitch, he’d faced 17 Nationals and they blistered his line with seven runs (six earned) on five hits.

Three of those runs in the first inning.

Four came in the third.

Dylan Crews was in the middle of both rallies.

The Nationals’ No. 3 hitter and right fielder, Crews roped a single against Leahy in the first inning to put a rally in motion. His base hit was followed by CJ Abrams’ RBI single, and then Crews scored on a groundout as Leahy regained some control of the inning. Leahy was able to get a pair of groundouts to escape the first inning, and he blitzed through the bottom of the Nationals’ order in the second.

When the top came back around, a walk once again put Crews in a spot to capitalize.

The runner ahead of Crews in the first inning walked, and the runner on base for Crews in the third inning walked. All three of the walks that Leahy issued in the game led to runs for Washington. And in the third, Crews, with a teammate first, drove a sinker that did not sink the opposite direction for a two-run homer. Crews’ homer tucked into the right-field corner, 379 feet away from home plate, and gave the Nats a quick 5-0 lead before the Cardinals had sent their entire lineup to the plate.

The Cardinals plotted this shrinking-start finish for Leahy to avoid adding a significant amount of innings to his body compared to last year. The goal, which manager Oli Marmol restated in his office Friday afternoon, was to prepare Leahy to be an impact starter without such limitations for 2027, and the numbers support the results they got first from transitioning Leahy into a starting role and second from being proactive managing his workload.

Hjerpe was promoted to piggyback specifically with Leahy.

Asked before the game if Hjerpe would take the start the next time the spot came up in the rotation, Marmol said that was not the plan. If they opt to have Leahy make one final start in the next turn of the rotation Hjerpe would be available to cover innings again.

After riches, Cavalli hurls zeroes

Drafted one spot after Jordan Walker in the 2020 draft — at No. 22 overall — Washington ace Cavalli reached another rite of passage for a young player Friday.

He and the Nationals announced an agreement on a four-year, $47 million deal that could, with an option, swell to as much as $70 million. The late-season extension comes just ahead of the right-hander becoming, like Walker, arbitration-eligible this offseason. After the agreement with commas and zeroes was announced, Cavalli stringed some zeroes together on the scoreboard, too.

In his first inning since the extension, Cavalli struck out the side.

He allowed a pair of singles to start the second inning — including one scorched at 117.2 mph by Walker — and did not yield a run. He was able to get a pair of fly outs to end the inning, and keep rolling through the Cardinals’ lineup. Cavalli retired seven of the final eight batters he faced to complete five scoreless innings.

He made the Cardinals earn their chance against him by not walking a single batter.

He struck out six.

Hjerpe finds rebound in relief

His debut was perfect.

His encore was not.

His third appearance in the majors was comfortably in between.

Coming off a difficult appearance at the start of the home stand that included four runs and four walks and one inning of work, lefty Hjerpe was able to stay steady in his four innings Friday night against the Nationals. Hjerpe struck out three and he sidestepped some of the trouble created by two walks. He allowed two runs total, and the first one came off a double hit by the first batter he faced before he found a groove in the later innings.

The lefty was able to get five swings and misses, and four of them came on his fastball.

The four innings matched the four perfect innings he pitched in his debut at Coors Field and gave the Cardinals coverage in a game that otherwise could have left the bullpen worn, winded, and tattered for the two remaining home games.

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