The St. Louis Cardinals gave Chris Carpenter one first inning run against Roy Halladay, and that’s all their ace needed as he tossed a shutout to get the Cardinals past the favored Philadelphia Phillies and into their first NLCS since their 2006 World Series championship season. Some outstanding plays from Rafael Furcal—leader of the Happy Flight, and the man who made “the best throw of my life” to keep the Phillies scoreless in the eighth—and Nick Punto punctuated the three-hitter for Carpenter, who lost his first game of the series after struggling on three days’ rest.
Skip Schumaker’s RBI double—after Rafael Furcal’s leadoff triple—was the only run of the game, and it came after Schumaker got a surprise start in center field and before he left the game in the third inning with an oblique injury. It was an incredible series of events for a team that needed an incredible series of events to get to the NLDS in the first place.
The Cardinals will meet the MIlwaukee Brewers with the World Series on the line Sunday October 9 at 3:05 CDT.