Cardinals far from perfect in Game 1 loss

ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis Cardinals knew full well they'd have to play a near-perfect game to beat Madison Bumgarner, whose road heroics in the postseason are nearing legendary status.

The Cardinals had seen how Bumgarner overwhelmed the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park in the wild-card game, and they got a dose of his brilliance when he shackled them over seven innings in a May 30 game at Busch Stadium, although they did extract some payback by beating him at AT&T Park five weeks later.

Saturday night's opener of the National League Championship Series presented the kind of setting that brings out the best in the San Francisco Giants left-hander – a big game on the road, with the opportunity to quiet down a hostile crowd.

To counter, the Cardinals would have to be at the top of their game, from staff ace Adam Wainwright to the fielders behind him.

They were nowhere close.

The typically impeccable Cardinals provided the kind of extra opportunities the Giants have been exploiting every time they've made the playoffs since 2010, and they rode three early runs and Bumgarner's 7 2/3 innings of four-hit ball to a 3-0 victory Saturday night.

Two of the runs were gifts, the product of defensive sloppiness Wainwright could not afford as he battled his mechanics and the pesky San Francisco hitters. They drove him out of the game before the fifth inning was over.

"They capitalized,'' St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. "We knew that going in it's going to be that kind of a game and that kind of a series. You have two teams who find ways to score and capitalize on the other team's mistake.''

The Cardinals made two critical ones.

Third baseman Matt Carpenter's fielding error in the second inning allowed the Giants to score a second run, after Wainwright appeared to have gotten out of a bases-loaded situation with minimal damage by inducing a grounder from Gregor Blanco.

With runners on first and second and no outs in the next inning, second baseman Kolten Wong couldn't handle a potential double-play grounder by Hunter Pence that may have killed the incipient rally. The Cardinals still got a forceout at second, but Brandon Belt followed by driving in the game's third run with a sacrifice fly.

By the end of the inning, Wainwright had already thrown 69 pitches.

"Waino was battling, really working hard out there,'' Carpenter said. "There's a couple of things we didn't do as a defense that might have prolonged that. You look at the way he pitched, he probably could have gotten out of that without giving up any runs, maybe one at the most. But at the end of the day, you can't win if you don't score any runs. That was really the difference in the game.''

It's one thing to stake Bumgarner to a one-run lead. Give him a three-run cushion, especially on the road, and you might as well start getting ready for the next game. Not only did the Giants ace go 11-4 with a 2.22 ERA away from San Francisco this year, but he has an ongoing streak of 26 2/3 scoreless innings on the road in the postseason, a major league record.

His numbers in four postseason starts on the road: 4-0, with an 0.59 ERA.

"With one run, you always have confidence in a guy like him to keep that lead the entire game,'' left fielder Travis Ishikawa said. "Any time you give a guy like Bum the lead, you have to feel pretty good about your situation.''

In typical Giants fashion, it wasn't a star but rather Ishikawa who supplied that first run. The seventh-year journeyman, a first baseman by trade, began the season with the Pirates and was released in April. He spent time in the minors, considered retiring at the end of the season, but got called up in late July. He has been starting in left against right-handers as Michael Morse continues to work his way back after missing nearly a month with a strained oblique muscle.

Ishikawa, who had four hits in 23 postseason at-bats before Saturday, hit a bases-loaded blooper behind third base to drive in the game's first run in the second. He also singled in the fourth and robbed Yadier Molina of a hit with a diving catch.

"He's a pretty good athlete and he showed that tonight,'' manager Bruce Bochy said of Ishikawa, who got some work in left field in the minors but had played only 11 games in the outfield at the big-league level before the playoffs. "There's no fear in him going out there.''

There was some fear about the condition of Wainwright's elbow, which he acknowledged had troubled him during his rough start (4 1/3 innings, six runs) against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series.

Wainwright pitched better this time, but he still endured the shortest home playoff start of his career, getting lifted with two outs in the fifth after running up his pitch count to 98. The three-time All-Star said he discovered a mechanical flaw after the game, which he blamed on not throwing any bullpen sessions in September as he saved his arm for the playoffs.

He sounded confident of being able to fix it and getting back to being the pitcher who went 20-9 with a 2.38 ERA this year.

"Normally I'm a groundball, quick-pitch guy,'' Wainwright said. "I haven't been that the last two starts, but I was that way a whole lot of September, so there's no doubt I can get back to that the next time I pitch.''

Presumably that will be in this series, but not if the Cardinals keep presenting the Giants with gifts.

NLCS: Cardinals vs. Giants