Tonight at 6:30 p.m. ET, the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers kick off their best-of-five National League Division Series with Game 1 action live from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The game can be live streamed here. St. Louis fans can hear all of the action on KMOX 1100 while Los Angeles fans can do the same on 570 Fox Sports L.A.
St. Louis won the NL Central for the second straight season by finishing with a 90-72 record and is making its fourth straight postseason appearance. The Cardinals are looking to eventually get back to the World Series for the second straight year after losing to the Boston Red Sox in 2013 and are hoping to win it all for the first time since 2011.
Los Angeles won the NL West for the second consecutive season with a 94-68 record and will be looking to avenge a 2013 NLCS loss to these same Cardinals in 2013. The Dodgers are looking to eventually win their first World Series title since 1988.
Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38 ERA) takes the ball for the Cardinals while the Dodgers counter with Clayton Kershaw, who went 21-3 with an MLB-best 1.77 ERA in the regular season.
In any other season, Wainwright's numbers are good enough for Cy Young Award consideration, but Kershaw is not only the run-away favorite to win the Cy Young for a third time, but he is also in the conversation of National League MVP.
Kershaw not only led the league in wins and ERA, but he finished first in the MLB with a 0.86 WHIP and 10.85 strikeouts per nine innings. Wainwright's ERA and wins rank him second in the league.
While Kershaw has enjoyed plenty of success, it's not time for him to think about the Cy Young or MVP awards right now.
"It's just too hard to think about that stuff," Kershaw told MLB.com. "There's a time for that, and I'll definitely look back on the season when it's over."
Kershaw definitely won't want to look back to Game 6 of last year's NLCS where the Cardinals beat him and the Dodgers 9-0 to punch their ticket to the World Series.
Kershaw will face a St. Louis lineup that has an unquestionable leader in catcher Yadier Molina, who dealt with injuries this season, but is a .294 lifetime hitter in the postseason with three homers and 31 RBI.
The Matts have led St Louis this season as first baseman Matt Adams paced the Cardinals with a .288 batting average while outfielder Matt Holliday was second on the team in homers (20) and first in RBI (90) and third baseman Matt Carpenter has been a spark plug, leading the NL with 95 walks and finishing third with 99 runs.
Wainwright, meanwhile, has put aside any bad blood between the two teams that stems from past postseason meetings.
"I think that any time you have two very good teams going at it like we did last year and two great organizations that obviously have mutual respect for each other and lay it on the line every night, you're going to have some squabbles every now and then," Wainwright said per MLB.com. "I don't think any of that carried over this year."
Wainwright will face a tough Dodgers lineup that includes first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, outfielders Yasiel Puig and Matt Kemp and a threat in second baseman Dee Gordon.
Gonzalez led the MLB with 116 RBI and paced Los Angeles with 27 homers this past season while Puig flanked the Dodgers with a .296 batting average and was fourth in the NL with a .863 OPS. Kemp ranked fourth in the NL with a .506 slugging percentage while Gordon paced the MLB with 12 triples and 64 stolen bases.
The Cardinals and Dodgers kick off the NLDS when they take the field tonight at 6:30 p.m. live from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
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