The Los Angeles Dodgers play the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday in Game 2 of their NL championship series. The game starts at 4:07 p.m. ET. Listen to the live radio broadcast HERE.
St. Louis drew first blood on Friday with a 3-2 win over Los Angeles in the 13th inning. Carlos Beltran was the hero for St. Louis, droving in all three runs, ESPN reports. After winning against Dodgers pitcher Zack Greinke, Cardinals manager Mike Martheny admitted his team has an even tougher challenge on Saturday against Ace pitcher Clayton Kershaw (1-0, 0.69 ERA).
"I mean, he's obviously been one of the league's top pitchers," said Martheny, via ESPN. "You throw him from the left side, first of all, then you put the velocity and the ability to control the counts and both sides of the strike zone and use his off speed pitches."
Kershaw hasn't played his best baseball during this postseason, but he's been more than effective. He gave up only one earned run against Atlanta and fanned 18 batters over 13 innings in the two division series games he pitched.
Kershaw knows facing the Cardinals will be difficult - St. Louis handed Kershaw two losses this year.
"Everybody talks about the team approach that they have, and kind of passing the baton just to the next guy," said Kershaw. "They don't hit a lot of homers, but they just get big hits and that's kind of what they preach. I guess that's the challenge they pose."
Michael Wacha returns to the mound for St. Louis on Saturday. The rookie (1-0, 1.23) doesn't have a lot of game footage for opposing teams to study, and it showed in the division series start against Pittsburgh when he allowed just one run.
In his last two outings, Wacha totaled 18 strikeouts.
