Cardinals up 2 – 0 in the NLCS

The St. Louis Cardinals won a pair of one run games within 24 hours and have taken a (2-0) NLCS lead vs the favored Los Angeles Dodgers.

Carlos Beltran was the star as the Redbirds won game 1 in 13 innings, a Friday night into Saturday morning game that lasted nearly 5 hours. Yesterday afternoon, Michael Wacha and Trevor Rosenthal combined to shutout the Dodgers (1-0) in a two hour, 40 minute tilt.

The Cardinals have won all six home games vs the Dodgers in series with the National League pennant on the line. Before this year, the previous two such series were in 1946 and 1985.

St. Louis won the best of three playoff for the pennant opener, at home in 1946, before clinching the series in Brooklyn in the next game.

Five years later, when the Dodgers were again to be involved in a “best two of three” playoff for the pennant, this time with their arch rivals, the New York Giants, the Dodgers won a coin toss and elected to play the first game of the playoff at home.

Thus the potential last two would be on the road. That decision was based on their loss in 1946, when they opened at St. Louis and lost the series in two straight games.

Of course, the Dodgers lost the 1951 playoff when Bobby Thomson hit a game winning home run off Ralph Branca in the bottom of the ninth inning in the decisive third game, which was a road game for the Dodgers.

Maybe the Dodgers would not have won the 1951 playoff, had they chosen to host the potential last two games.

However, one certainty is that a game ending home run such as Thomson hit, the impact of which still reverberates through time, would have been impossible.

The Cards won all three home games vs L.A. in the 1985 NLCS and two so far in 2013. Add the 1946 playoff home victory and St. Louis has a “Big Six.” That was the great pitcher, Christy Mathewson’s nickname.

The pitching, at least for three games in both LCS (the Tigers, like “St. Loo” (1-0) winners yesterday, used 5 pitchers who allowed but one hit and combined to fan 17 Red Sox batters) has been “Mathewson like.”

Carlos Beltran