Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, the San Francisco Giants and St. Louis Cardinals kick off their best-of-seven National League Championship Series live from Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The game can be live streamed for free here. San Francisco fans can hear all of the action on KNBR 680 while St. Louis fans can do the same on KMOX 1120.
San Francisco survived the NL Wild-Card Game against the Pittsburgh Pirates and then knocked off the top-seeded Washington Nationals in four games while St. Louis dropped the Los Angeles Dodgers in a series that also lasted four contests to get here.
This is a rematch of the 2012 NLCS that saw the Giants top the Cardinals in seven games before going on to win the World Series.
San Francisco is in the NLCS for the third time in five years, with both other instances seeing them win World Series titles, while St. Louis is in its fourth straight NLCS and will be looking to advance to the World Series for the second straight year and to win it all for the first time since 2011.
Madison Bumgarner (18-10, 2.98 regular season; 1-1, 1.13 ERA 2014 postseason) takes the mound for the Giants while the Cardinals counter with Adam Wainwright (20-9, 2.38; 0-0 12.46).
These teams always tend to shine in October, and Wainwright attempted to put his finger on what separates these two clubs from the others in the NL.
"I don't know how to put that without making 13 other teams mad in the National League," Wainwright said via MLB.com. "It's a tricky thing. But I do really believe when you get through the postseason, you win a couple of tough series, it gives you a greater edge and confidence going into the next time you're in the postseason."
Wainwright is looking to bounce back from getting knocked around by the Dodgers in NLDS Game 1 while Bumgarner has been solid through his first two starts except for a key error in NLDS Game 3 that gave the Nationals their only win of the series. Bumgarner is trying to stay calm.
"I just like to slow everything down and just treat it like another game and focus on making pitches," Bumgarner told MLB.com "That's really it."
San Francisco took four of seven from St. Louis in the regular season and took three of four from them on the road.
Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval, had his 14-game postseason hitting streak snapped in the Giants' NLDS-clinching game against the Washington Nationals, but the 2010 World Series MVP is a force to be reckoned with in October.
Sandoval is hitting .311 in his career in the playoffs with six homers and 16 RBI. While he is batting just .211 after the four-game NLDS, Sandoval came through in the clutch against the Nationals as he always seems to do this time of year.
The Cardinals respond with a solid third baseman of their own in Matt Carpenter, who launched three homers in the four-game NLDS against the Dodgers and is hitting .375 (6-for-16) with an MLB-best seven RBI after the opening round.
His 1.125 slugging percentage is also tops in the MLB following Round 1, so the Giants will want to be careful with the Cardinals' third baseman.
Both teams look for momentum when they take the field in hopes to eventually clinch a spot in the World Series. The NLCS kicks off when the Giants and Cardinals clash in Game 1 live from Busch Stadium tonight in St. Louis.
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