The Washington Nationals stay alive and the St. Louis Cardinals take a commanding 2-1 series lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers at home on Monday.
Both National League Division Series will go at least 4 games as the Washington Nationals defeat the San Francisco Giants Monday afternoon 4-1 in San Francisco. So far this series none of the home teams have won. The big play in this game was the 2-run throwing error by Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner in the 7th inning which gave the Nationals a 2-0 lead. The Nationals scored 1 more run in the inning and Bryce Harper capped off the Nationals scoring in the 9th inning with a 421 foot shot to right center. Doug Fister picked up the win for the Nationals throwing 7 shutout innings.
Game 4 between the Giants and Nationals will be played tonight at 7:07 PM from AT&T Park in San Francisco. The game can be heard on ESPN 700. Gio Gonzalez will get the start for Washington while the Giants will send Ryan Vogelsong to the mound. Will the Giants be able to finish off the series tonight or will it head back to the Nation’s Capital on Thursday? If the Nationals win tonight they will have the upper hand in the series and it will be hard to beat them on Thursday.
The St. Louis Cardinals take game 3 of their series over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday 3-1 behind a solid pitching performance of John Lackey and 2 homeruns from Matt Carpenter and Kolten Wong. This was the third straight game that Carpenter has hit a homerun. Game 4 will be this afternoon in St. Louis as the Cardinals can move onto the National League Championship Series with a win. The Dodgers will be sending Clayton Kershaw to the mound on short rest in this elimination game. Kershaw was roughed up a little bit in game one of this series so it will be interesting how he does on short rest. The Cardinals will start Shelby Miller this afternoon in what they hope will be a closeout game for this series at 3:07 PM.
The crazy thing about the Major League Baseball is you never know what can happen. It has been an interesting postseason and should continue to be so today with 2 more elimination games.
