ST. LOUIS — Unable to fully enjoy his milestone 2,000th career hit two nights earlier because it came in a gut punch of a loss for the Cardinals, star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt turned Sunday’s series finale against the Nationals into a celebration with an even bigger hit.

Goldschmidt drilled a home run into Busch Stadium’s left-field seats — not far from where Friday’s homer in a losing effort landed — to help the Cardinals beat the Nats 4-3 and avoid what would have been a crushing three-game sweep.

Mired in a career-worst slump much of the season, Goldschmidt hit a 2-2 pitch in the bottom of the ninth for his 16th home run of the season. It was his eighth career walk-off home run and his 11th career walk-off hit. The Cardinals, who improved to 20-14 this season in one-run games, celebrated a walk-off winner for the second time this season.

“We all want to play well individually and, more importantly, as a team, so when you put those two together, those are really fun days,” Goldschmidt said. “Hopefully, we can do a lot of that the next couple of months.”

Goldschmidt’s game-winning home run came on a day when the Redbirds blew a 2-0 lead and needed an opposite field grounder to short to get the game tied at 3 in the seventh inning. The blast might go down as one of the most important of the season considering that the Cards came into the day having lost three games in a row and nine of the past 15 — skids that pushed them out of position for a Wild Card spot. With their grip on a playoff spot seemingly slipping and their already small margin for error withering away, the Cards were especially happy about Goldschmidt’s homer considering how they are fighting every day for their postseason lives.

“The margin for wins and losses, with the way we’ve been playing in lots of these games, is so small, and hopefully we can make that play, pitch or hit [the rest of the season],” said Goldschmidt, whose 356th career home run tied him with Joey Votto for 91st in MLB history. “It’s going to be tough because we have so many teams around us. It’ll be fun, but it’s going to feel like a playoff game basically every day the rest of the year.”

Moments like Sunday, when the Cardinals found a way to battle against a left-handed starter opposite of them, found a way to get the game tied late when they trailed 3-2 and found a way to win it at the end, gives manager Oliver Marmol belief that the club still has a strong closing kick left in it.

“There’s not a doubt in that clubhouse about that exact thought,” Marmol said Sunday afternoon. “It’s more than belief, they’re convicted in doing it. We will find a way, and today was a big part of that.”

If the Cardinals are going to finish with a flurry and get back into the playoffs after missing them completely in 2023, they are likely going to need Goldschmidt to once again resemble the player who carried the franchise for years with his prodigious bat. Goldschmidt’s 376-foot homer on Friday made him just the fifth active player with 2,000 or more hits, joining Freddie Freeman, Jose Altuve, Votto and Andrew McCutchen.

On Sunday, he homered for the fifth time this July to give the team hope that he is about to go on a run where he carries the team for an extended stretch.

“That was so hot for all of us, and I’ve seen [Goldschmidt] get red hot before,” said starting pitcher Miles Mikolas, who delivered a quality start by allowing just three runs over six innings of work. “We’ve all seen it before where he has a rough first month and a half and then he’s the MVP. We know he’s capable of turning it on, hitting his stride and being one of the best hitters in the big leagues. If we can get him going, and get some of the other guys going, we could be a real big problem for a lot of teams down the stretch.”

Goldschmidt said that, at times, he’s felt personally responsible for the Cardinals’ inability to score runs consistently. One of MLB’s most consistent RBI leaders for years, Goldschmidt has just three extra-base hits — a double and two homers — with runners in scoring position this season.

“One of the things I haven’t done is be consistent,” Goldschmidt said. “There have been games here and there where I’ve played well and then two or three where I don’t. The goal is just to try and be consistent. Hopefully this is the start of that.”