Five of ESPN.coms MLB beat writers who cover teams battling for wild-card berths were asked to make a case for why their team will be playing a do-or-die playoff game in October. Below, Mark Saxon argues for the St. Louis Cardinals against fellow writers Eddie Matz (Baltimore Orioles), Andrew Marchand (New York Yankees), Katie Strang (Detroit Tigers) and Adam Rubin (New York Mets).For more on the other contenders, check out?Wild-card Wednesday.Saxon: If you believe the moral of the old fable The Tortoise and the Hare, then you buy that the Cardinals will reach the NL wild-card game. While the other two contenders, the Mets and Giants, have had wild swings of fortune, the Cardinals have just kept plodding along. Their longest losing streak is five games. Their longest winning streak is five games. They came one right after the other in mid-June. So all they have to do is continue their steady-as-it-goes approach and one of the other two contenders figures to beat itself. The other thing they have going for them: Starting Thursday, the best road team in baseball has 10 of its final 17 games away from Busch Stadium. If they get into the postseason, who knows? Maybe theyll finally get hot.Marchand: This does not feel like a classic Cardinals team. They have been great on the road, but that could be reaching its expiration point.Matz: As my mother will tell you, Im a good boy who follows directions, and my marching orders here were to shoot a hole in every one of these theories (except mine, of course). To do that, Im calling on my experience with logic puzzles back in Mrs. Harris fifth-grade math class. If the Mets and Cardinals arent wild cards (which, per my instructions, they cant be), then the wild cards must be the second-place NL West team (Giants or Dodgers) and the ... Marlins?Strang: The Cards had dropped four of their past six games heading into Tuesdays action, including Mondays loss, in which they mustered just one hit off Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks (who, granted, has been lights-out against pretty much everyone in recent months) and saw Matt Carpenter exit the game with back tightness. More concerning is that St. Louis still has another set against the Cubs before closing out the season with a seven-game homestand. That stretch at home should be a good thing, especially considering their caliber of competition -- except for the fact, as Saxon astutely pointed out, that the Cards have been awful at Busch Stadium this year.Rubin: We already covered the disparity in schedule strength the remainder of the season to justify why the Mets will reach the postseason over St. Louis. Now lets zero in on the Cardinals swoon, which is being fueled by inconsistent starting pitching, erratic defense and a glaring lack of setup men. Jaime Garcia produced an 8.06 ERA in a five-start stretch through last Thursday. Meanwhile, Aledmys Diaz has only a .957 fielding percentage, with 16 errors through 93 games at shortstop. Robby Anderson Jersey . PAUL, Minn. Dennis Byrd Jersey .Y. -- Marcell Dareus and the Buffalo Bills defence made life miserable for Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco. http://www.authenticnyjetspro.com/Quinnen-williams-jets-jersey/ . P.A. Parenteau scored early in the third period to help the Avs edge Toronto 2-1 on Tuesday night. Cory Sarich also scored for Colorado (3-0-0), which is off to its best ever start. LeVeon Bell Jets Jersey . -- Devin Hester is done returning kicks in Chicago. LeVeon Bell Youth Jersey . Pedro scored from a pass by Lionel Messi in the 33rd minute and added two more goals in the 47th and 72nd after Valdes saved his second penalty in four days following his stop in Wednesdays 4-0 over Ajax in the Champions League. KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- In the span of a few hours Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs went from controlling the AFC West and taking care of a playoff spot to watching the Oakland Raiders take everything instead.The Chiefs, who have already beaten the Raiders twice, were leading Tennessee 17-7 in the second half at frosty, frigid Arrowhead Stadium. But an offense that inexplicably went conservative down the stretch and a defense that finally cracked allowed the Titans to rally for a 19-17 victory.When the Raiders beat San Diego later in the afternoon, it was Oakland that had improved to 11-3, moved atop the division and clinched its first playoff berth since the 2002 season -- and the Chiefs who were 10-4, in second place and with their own postseason fate still in the balance.Everything we want is still right there ahead of us, Chiefs wide receiver Jeremy Maclin said. We just need to go out, get back to the film room, get back to practice, correct our mistakes and learn from them.There were plenty of mistakes to learn from, beginning with two scoreless red-zone trips, another poor day of third-down conversions and an offense that went into a shell at halftime. It was the third straight week they failed to score an offensive touchdown in the second half.We were awful on third down and we didnt capitalize in the red zone, Maclin said. We could have put the game away much, much earlier, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves.The loss was damaging on several fronts for Kansas City, but most importantly when it comes to playoff positioning. The Chiefs own the tiebreaker over the Raiders by virtue of their head-to-head wins, but they are now a full game behind their division rivals in the standings. That means the Chiefs dropped from the No. 2 seed in the AFC, which would have meant a first-round bye and at least one home game, to the No. 5 seed and a first-round game on the road.You can sit here and point fingers, you can do all that stuff that bad teams do, or you can fix the problems. So weve got to make sure we do that, Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. Were still in good position. Weve got a good football team cominng in here.dddddddddddd We need to have a good week of practice. Thats what is real. I have enough trust in this team that well do that.That team coming in will be the Denver Broncos, who are in desperation mode of their own after a loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday. The Chiefs play them at Arrowhead Stadium on Christmas night.By then, theyll know what has transpired Saturday in Oaklands game against Indianapolis.The Chiefs dont plan to be scoreboard-watching, though, because what happens in that game doesnt much matter to them if they dont take care of Denver. And if they cant right their wrongs from a disheartening loss to Tennessee, the same fate is liable to befall them next Sunday.That means better execution on third down. Better play-calling across the board. Better everything when the Chiefs get inside the 20-yard line, the scoring zone that has given them fits all season.We have to get it figured out, said Alex Smith, who threw an interception in the end zone early in the second half when the Chiefs had a chance to essentially put the game away.I mean, its easy to say (the Chiefs got conservative) when things dont go well, he said. Certainly we were not in a rhythm at all. We did not get anything going. We were pretty stagnant in the second half, so its easy to say when things are not going well. Youve got to look at it and get better.Smith paused for a second before putting everything into perspective.This time of year, these are all huge games, he said, and the littlest things make big differences.Game notes Reid said Monday he had talked to TE Travis Kelce, who was critical of what he considered to be overly conservative second-half play-calling Sunday. He wants to be the guy who gets the ball and wins the game for you, and Im all for that, Reid said. He was the first one to come to me and say it didnt come out the way he really wanted it to. He just wants to be the guy who makes the play.---For more coverage: www.pro32.ap.org and http://twitter.com/AP-NFL ' ' '