The good news: The Cardinals made the playoffs behind a fantastic performance from Chris Carpenter!

The bad news: Well, now he can't pitch until the third game of the NLDS, and it turns out that a 42-year-old Donovan Osborne could have held the huge lead in the last game of the season. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that.

But according to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals have set their rotation for the NLDS:

Lohse/EJax/Carp against Halladay/Lee/Hamels in NLDS.

So that's Kyle Lohse, Edwin Jackson, and Carpenter for the Cards in the first three games. They'll face a Phillies rotation that's had all sorts of time to get prepared and lined up, so there aren't any surprises there. Roy Halladay will go for the first game, Cliff Lee in the second, and Cole Hamels for the third. A fourth game would presumably match Jaime Garcia against Roy Oswalt.

Last year the Cardinals had Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright at the top of the rotation, and they didn't make the playoffs. This year, Kyle Lohse will start the first game of the playoffs. This game doesn't make any sense.