Major League Baseball showed support for LGBT youth and took a stand against bullying on Spirit Day, which was Thursday. The initiative, which was started by a teen in 2010, was formed to help prevent teen suicide.

Buster Posey went 2-for-3 and drove in three runs to lead the Giants to a 6-4 triumph Wednesday night over St. Louis in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. A three-run rally in the sixth inning, which included a clutch RBI single from Posey, put the Giants on top after they had trailed since the second inning.

Again undone by plays not made and hampered by a short Shelby Miller start and a generous ‘pen, the Cardinals surrendered a three-run lead to the Giants, who scored five unanswered runs to steal a 6-4 Game 4 win on Wednesday night. The victory, which came in a packed AT&T Park, moves San Francisco a win away from knocking the Cardinals out of the NLCS for the second time in three years.

The St. Louis Cardinals cannot possibly be the same team without the services of catcher Yadier Molina. And yet, in the exalted realm of October baseball, this cannot be an all-purpose excuse. In fact, the Cardinals are 0-2 in the National League Championship Series games in which Molina has been absent since he sustained a left oblique strain. But the way the Cardinals lost these two games did not point to Molina’s absence as the chief culprit.

With the Cardinals one loss away from the offseason, they are rolling out the big boys for tonight’s Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. It doesn’t get much bigger than the Cards’ 6-foot-7 Adam Wainwright staring down 6-foot-5 Madison Bumgarner of the Giants with everything on the line.

The St. Louis Cardinals look across the diamond at the San Francisco Giants and see themselves. At least, they see the team they were for most of the season.

Just like the Giants did so well during World Series runs in 2010 and ’12, and have done so well again this postseason, Matt Duffy did the little thing right in the sixth inning Wednesday: Pinch-hitting for Yusmeiro Petit, he placed a successful bunt down the first-base line to advance the runners.

It had been 11 days since Yusmeiro Petit last pitched, that outing covering six relief innings in the Giants’ 18-inning win in Game 2 of the National League Division Series against the Nationals in Washington. “Every day, I’m staying ready,” Petit said. “I have to throw a little bit every two days. I’m a long reliever and I have to be ready for anything. You never know when you’re needed to throw.”

With one out in the sixth inning Wednesday, Giants outfielder Juan Perez stood at third base, representing the potential tying run in Game 4 of the NLCS. Gregor Blanco stepped into the box against Cardinals reliever Marco Gonzales and chopped a pitch toward the right side of the infield, setting off a mad dash to the plate, all captured by Statcast’s game-changing technology.

While it’s difficult to gripe about the Cardinals’ early-inning performance, they certainly could have had more against Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong. In hindsight, two double plays off the bat of Jhonny Peralta in the first and third frames are tough to swallow.

Two years ago in the National League Championship Series, the Cardinals had a 3-1 lead over the Giants after four games, only to squander it away with losses in the final three games of the series. The Giants went on to win the World Series. Reminded of this after Wednesday’s loss, Cardinals second baseman Kolten Wong offered a simplistic yet daunting solution to this predicament. “I guess it would be nice to repay the favor,” Wong said, still managing a smile.

Fans can see the 20-second pitch clock and the other experimental rules in action again in the Arizona Fall League tonight, when Salt River hosts Glendale. The game, which begins at 9:35 p.m. ET, will be streamed live on MLB.com and MLBFallBall.com.

Manager Bruce Bochy likes to say that the Giants make their own luck, applying just enough pressure in just the right places. So it was entirely not surprising to Bochy when Gregor Blanco dribbled a ball to the right side in the sixth inning of Wednesday’s Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, pressuring Matt Adams into the poor throw that tied the game and sparked the Giants — now one win shy of their third World Series berth in five years — to a 6-4 victory at AT&T Park.

Giants catcher Buster Posey has made the transition. The shy kid in the corner as a rookie in 2010 has stepped onto center stage. He may not relish the spotlight, but he has learned to accept it.

The Giants’ 6-4 verdict in Game 4 of the NLCS for a 3-1 lead was baffling on the face of it. The Giants had one extra-base hit — Gregor Blanco’s leadoff double in the first off the glove of center fielder Jon Jay — when they overcame a one-run deficit with three sixth-inning runs. Another double would come from Brandon Crawford in the seventh. The Cards’ defense caved, but that’s what can happen when pressure is applied. Here are five things we learned from Game 4.

San Francisco rode six innings of shutout relief and a three-run sixth inning to win, 6-4, on Wednesday night and take a commanding 3-1 series lead over St. Louis. Here’s what you need to know about the Giants’ victory.

The 2014 postseason has been one for the record books, and the Royals’ remarkable run to the World Series for the first time in almost three decades is just one of the many high notes for a postseason like none other. If that sounds like a broken record, it’s because this has become a non-stop barrage of accomplishments not written in baseball’s October annals before, or at least not in a very long time.