ST. LOUIS — Frustrated by the St. Louis Cardinals' failure to sweep the San Diego Padres for a second straight year, Albert Pujols banned luggage at Busch Stadium.

He wanted teammates to feel urgency. Forget about contingencies for a deciding Game 5 on the road.

"I told the guys, 'Hey, don't pack,"' Pujols said after the Cardinals eliminated the Padres 6-2 in Game 4 of the National League division series on Sunday night. "I don't want to see any suitcases because we're going to win this game.

"It's not disrespecting the Padres, but that's the attitude that it takes."

After making it to the NLCS for the third straight year, the Cardinals were to head for the airport this afternoon instead. Their destination: New York for the start of the best-of-seven series against the Mets that starts Wednesday.

The Mets were 4-2 against the Cardinals in the regular season.

"Hopefully we'll bring a World Series back to St. Louis," Pujols said. "I'm pretty sure we're going to be the underdog facing New York.

"But you know anything can happen in the playoffs."

Pujols presided over the postgame celebration, standing on a folding chair in a raucous clubhouse while spraying champagne in every direction. The tension from Chris Carpenter's shaky beginning, the angst of the team's late-season swoon, all had evaporated.

Carpenter needed 35 pitches to escape the first inning, then recovered nicely to gain his second victory of the series. Juan Encarnacion's tiebreaking triple was the big hit in a four-run sixth.

St. Louis nearly wasted a seven-game lead in the final two weeks of the regular season but rebounded against the Padres, a team the Cardinals swept in the first round last year.

Escaping trouble in each of the last two innings with a bullpen that threw 13Z\c scoreless innings, the Cardinals sealed the win when Adam Wainwright got Dave Roberts on a groundout with two on. Pujols stepped on the first-base bag for the final out to set off the celebration at new Busch Stadium.

"We've popped champagne twice," La Russa said. "The goal is to pop it four times."

The Padres totaled six runs in the series, going 2-for-32 (.063) with runners in scoring position.

"With all the teams that got eliminated, that's what happened," Brian Giles said. "You look at us, the Dodgers, the Yankees, the Twins — we all scuffled with runners in scoring position."