Reggie Sanders and the St. Louis Cardinals seem to be in a hurry to return to the World Series, and they weren't about to be slowed by the San Diego Padres.
The Cardinals, baseball's best team in the regular season, brushed aside the Padres just as almost everybody thought they would, winning 7-4 Saturday night for a three-game sweep of their first-round playoff series.
Sanders drove in two more runs to set an National League division series record with 10, and little David Eckstein hit his first career postseason homer as the Cardinals chased former teammate Woody Williams before he could get out of the second inning.
Right-hander Matt Morris, who's been with the Cardinals since 1997 and is their longest-tenured player, recovered from his late-season struggles to hold the Padres hitless for 4 1-3 innings. With two on in the bottom of the ninth, Jason Isringhausen struck out Brian Giles and retired Ryan Klesko on a comebacker to seal the victory.
The Cardinals made it to the World Series last year before flopping in a four-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox. St. Louis advances to the NL championship series for the fourth time in six years, and will have home-field advantage against the winner of the Houston-Atlanta series. The Astros lost to St. Louis in seven games in last year's NLCS.
San Diego was as mediocre in this series as it was in winning the woeful NL West. The Padres never led, and their starting pitchers lasted only 10 innings, with a 13.50 ERA. San Diego (82-80) entered the playoffs with the worst winning percentage of a division champion (.506) in a non-strike season. Including this series, they finished one game under .500.
Astros 7, Braves 3
At Houston, Roy Oswalt pitched into the eighth inning, striking out seven of the next 12 batters after an awkward spill, and Houston beat Atlanta to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five series.
Houston can advance to its second consecutive NL championship series with a victory at home on Sunday. Brandon Backe will pitch for the Astros -- but Atlanta manager Bobby Cox had not announced his starter yet. He said he might bring Tim Hudson back on three days' rest.
Mike Lamb hit a tiebreaking homer in the third for the Astros, who after seven first-round exits from the playoffs are trying to eliminate the Braves in the division series for the second year in a row.
Craig Biggio, the 39-year-old second baseman who has spent his entire career in Houston and last week agreed to a contract for 2006, hit three doubles and scored twice. Morgan Ensberg, who had five RBIs during a 10-5 win in the series opener, added a pair of RBI doubles to the delight of a boisterous home crowd.
There wasn't much time until Game 4, which is Sunday at noon local time.
Atlanta has won 14 straight division titles, but hasn't made it past the first round of the playoffs since 2001. The Braves could go to Hudson, the loser in Game 1, in the hopes of sending the series back to Atlanta for a deciding game Monday night.
Game 4 of the American League playoff series between Los Angeles and New York was postponed by rain, more than 3 1/2 hours before it was scheduled to start, and moved to Sunday night.
Los Angeles leads the series 2-1. If the Yankees win and force Game 5, that one would be Monday afternoon or evening in Anaheim, California.
RSS