SAN FRANCISCO -- When you've lived through what the St. Louis Cardinals have lived through this season, you know the difference between a crisis and a predicament.

When a teammate goes to bed one night and doesn't wake up? That's a crisis.

Down two games to none in a playoff series with the next three on the road? That's a predicament.

	Chuck Finley allowed no runs and only four hits in 6 1/3 innings in his start against Arizona in the Division Series.

It's not a predicament the St. Louis Cardinals are real thrilled about, you understand. But when you've come from where they've come from to be in this spot, you know what it means to persevere.

All they've done is keep on churning, keep on living, keep on winning since that nightmarish Saturday in June when they lost Darryl Kile. So even though they need to win two of three in San Francisco this weekend just to get the National League Championship Series back to St. Louis, they remain a team no one should eliminate before their time.

"This," said Fernando Vina, "is right where we've been all season."

They have spent the last four months redefining all of our ideas on what passes for resilience. But resilience alone won't be enough. Not now.

History shows us that what the Cardinals are trying to accomplish now may not be impossible. But it sure is Herculean. Let's just say you don't need to be a math professor at M.I.T. to do this math.

Baseball has been playing best-of-seven postseason series for almost a century. In all those years, in all those series, only three teams have ever lost the first two games of a best-of-seven series at home and then come back to win the series.

The 1996 Yankees did it against the Braves. The 1986 Mets did it against the Red Sox. The 1985 Royals did it against the Cardinals. Those were all World Series comebacks. Since the League Championship Series expanded to best-of-seven in 1985, seven teams have lost the first two games at home. They went 0-7.

"The odds aren't good," said Cardinals pitcher Woody Williams. "But the odds have been against us all year. Nobody expected us to do what we've done with all we went through. We've just got to play the way we're capable of playing, not put pressure on ourselves and just let it happen."

It was only a few days ago, remember, that we all thought this was the hottest team in the solar system. Before the Giants showed up, the Cardinals were 24-4 since Sept. 2, 41-14 since Aug. 7, 53-27 since the All-Star break and 60-34 since the death of Kile. They had just swept the defending World Series champion Diamondbacks in the Division Series.

Now, all of a sudden, the Cardinals' team ERA in this series is 6.50. The only runs they've scored in their last 12 innings came on two pinch-hit home runs (which at least makes them the first team to hit two pinch-hit homers in a postseason series since the 1978 Phillies).

	“	The odds aren't good. But the odds have been against us all year. Nobody expected us to do what we've done with all we went through. We've just got to play the way we're capable of playing, not put pressure on ourselves and just let it happen. ”
		— Woody Williams, Cardinals pitcher

They haven't led for one minute all series. Tino Martinez -- imported to sprinkle some of that Yankee magic dust -- is 1-for-18 thus far in the postseason.

And if these guys are having trouble remembering what it feels like to rebound from back-to-back losses at home, maybe that's because they haven't had to do it in almost seven weeks.

But in the postseason, everything can change in one pitch, in one instant, in one swing of the bat. For the Cardinals this week, that wasn't a good thing.

As soon as Matt Morris got them six runs down early in Game 1, you could see the stars begin to line up in the Giants' dugout.

This lineup misses Scott Rolen. The bench misses Miguel Cairo, who has had to play third base in place of Rolen.

Tony La Russa couldn't afford to pinch-hit for Morris early in Game 1 because of that short bench.

And with Williams' health uncertain right until game time in Game 2, the manager couldn't afford to risk rushing in Jason Simontacchi in the third inning Wednesday, for fear he'd need him Thursday.

So Game 1 started the avalanche rolling downhill. And after Game 1, every pitching matchup tilted in the Giants' favor.

Williams would have been the first pitcher in half a century to win a postseason game after not pitching for 20 days in Game 2. Amazingly good as he was, he would have had to throw a shutout to outduel Jason Schmidt, who looked positively Schilling-esque.

That put the Giants up two games. And now, for the Cardinals, the matchups don't get any better.

Saturday afternoon, they start Chuck Finley, the only active 200-game winner in baseball without a postseason win. Finley actually outpitched Schilling last week, but got a no-decision. This week, he's stuck with dueling Russ Ortiz, who has merely won eight straight starts.

Sunday, it's Andy Benes, coming off 4 2/3 rocky innings against Arizona, against a man who has never lost in October, Livan Hernandez (6-0, 2.84).

It's hard to favor the Cardinals in any one of those matchups. Then again, that's nothing new. For weeks now, they've ridden their bullpen and their defense and their lineup to outplay whatever starting-pitching deficiencies they had.

Now, all of a sudden, that's tougher without Rolen. The Cardinals kept him on the roster, hoping he could play by Game 3. At this point, it looks as if it would be a medical miracle if he can even go in to play a little defense before Monday.

So this is a tough, tough spot they find themselves in -- battling a crucial injury, battling the mathematics, battling a team even hotter than they were.

What keeps these Cardinals going is that they've overcome tougher obstacles than this.

"We've been there all year long," Vina said, "but we keep coming back. Believe it or not, I like our chances, even down 2-0."

If they were any other team, you'd say, "Yeah, sure." But if there were one team left standing who would think an 0-2 hole was no big deal, it's the team that knows the true meaning of life or death.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com.