The St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Francisco Giants 6-4 in Sunday's game to take a 1-0 lead in the NL championship series.
Carlos Beltran and David Freese shined for the Cardinals. The duo smashed a pair of 2-run homers to ensure a win for their team.
The Cardinals built an early lead of 6-0 and with it putting themselves in a comfortable position. Last week the Cardinals came from behind when they were 6-0 down to the Nationals to win the deciding match of the best-of-five series to qualify for the NL championship series.
The Associated Press quoted Freese as saying: "I'm thinking about the D.C. game. They were up 6-0. We were up 6-0. And that shows that you've got to keep playing. ... We were fortunate enough that our bullpen came in and closed the door the rest of the way."
Angel Pagan, the Giants center fielder added: "They put together some better at-bats than us. They hit some homers and were up 6-0. That's a pretty good lead in the playoffs. We tried to battle back. We did our best but it wasn't our night."
Chris Carpenter will pitch for the Cardinals in the second game on Monday night against Ryan Vogelsong.
Beltran scored his 14th career home run in the postseason and his third this month.
"The way we play the game, we have been in this type of situation before in the regular season. These guys have this mentality of not panicking," he said.
"Right now I'm really enjoying myself. Right now I'm seeing the ball well. I feel like I have a good approach at the plate, I feel like I'm not trying to do too much, and good things are happening."
Cardinals manager Michael Matheny did not change the lineup retaining the same team that played Game 5 against the Nationals.
"I think that's been very much of a strong suit for us all season," Matheny observed. "And it's a beautiful thing when these guys trust themselves when they get to two strikes (Freese and Beltran had two strikes each for their homers).
"They can be a little more selective early in the count and then they're not going to panic when we do get to two strikes. I give the guys a lot of credit."
The Giants will now be desperate to avoid a 2-0 deficit going into the next game. "We've shown how resilient we can be," Giants manager Bruce Rochy said. "We hate to lose them at home, but it happens. And we've got to wash this one off and come out and be ready to go tomorrow."
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