It wasn't a gem, but Blue Jays finish off weekend sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals

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Meaningful baseball games in September are a thing to behold. Meaningless games are quite the opposite.

That was the case for Sunday’s series finale between the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals, two teams without a playoff hope just playing out the string.

St. Louis’ Miles Mikolas and Toronto’s Yariel Rodriguez kept it close early, though the Cards righty with the longer leash went well past the 4.1 innings his Jays counterpart managed.

Even so, neither was around for the decision, a 3-2 Jays win courtesy of an eighth-inning Nathan Lukes double down the left-field line that drove home George Springer from first with the eventual winning run.

It’s no secret that neither the Jays nor the Cards have hit the ball the way they would like this year and that was plainly clear on Sunday. But credit the Jays with sweeping this winnable series.

Wins in the standings don’t count for anything at this point if you are the Jays, but there is a desire to re-acquaint themselves with that feeling again of winning games consistently after a tough year.

“Any sweep is huge in this league,” manager John Schneider said. “It’s hard to do. That was three veteran pitchers that they threw at us and it’s just a job well done.”

Schneider said the goal from the beginning of the year to now doesn’t change, regardless of what the standings say. It’s win as many games as you can.

“I hate looking at the standings and seeing where we are, at the bottom of our own division,” Schneider said. “I think just to play well would be nice and focus on things we want to work on in the off-season going into next year.

“It is nice to have some goals internally,” Schneider said. “The guys have been up for it. I don’t want to say it’s easy to go through the motions. I think there are teams we have played where we have ‘out-energied’ them, if that’s the right word. I’m really proud of that.”

There’s always the importance of getting at-bats and innings for the younger players or the players finally getting a good taste of the majors after working their way through the minor leagues.

Lukes, 30, is one of those guys showcasing himself for the organization and even somewhere else after toiling in the minors for as long as he did. He was the hitting star of yesterday’s game with a pair of doubles from the leadoff spot.

Rodriguez, 27, is another of those players looking to establish staying power in the league, having arrived a little later than others having taken the long route from Cuba to the major leagues via Japan.

The right-hander remains on a pitch count after having sat out all of last season in order to make the jump from Japan to the majors. Even when he’s in a groove, as he was on Sunday — into the fifth inning, when he reached his pitch count — he comes out.

Asked through an interpreter how difficult it is to be patient in those circumstances, Rodriguez relayed that it’s just part of the plan the team set up for him at the beginning of the year to build him back up after that lost season.

He admitted it’s a little tough coming out when things are going so well, but he understands the bigger picture and will follow that plan the remainder of the year, hopefully doing enough to put himself in a spot where he can contend for one of the five starting jobs in the rotation next season.

AROUND THE BASES

Davis Schneider continued his hot run of late, as well, with a two-run homer in the fourth just behind a Spencer Horwitz plunking. Schneider hasn’t had much to show for the past three months before he found his stroke and started hitting the ball with authority again. The manager said that through it all, Schneider has remained upbeat and positive in large part because of the backing of his teammates … Zach Pop picked up the win, getting the final out of the Cards eighth before Springer and Lukes combined to push the eventual winner across in the bottom of the inning … Chad Green picked up his 17th save with a bit of a nervous ninth bit all in all a positive afternoon for the bullpen which has struggled as much or more than any unit in the Jays clubhouse this season. The Jays used five relievers after Rodriguez came out in the fifth and the lone blemish on the group was a solo homer to Ivan Herrera in the fifth by Ryan Yarbrough … Vladimir Guerrero Jr., had the chance to add to his 500 career RBIs taken away in both the sixth and eighth innings. With runners in scoring position and first base open, the Cards twice elected to put him on and take their chances with Horwitz, hitting in the clean-up spot behind him. It worked out for St. Louis both times as Horwitz grounded out both times … It was the Jays’ fifth sweep of the season and third at home this year.

mganter@postmedia.com

X: @mike_ganter