The St. Louis Cardinals have added to their early lead and are now up 5-0 on the Nationals through the first six innings. After an ugly first two innings, Edwin Jackson settled in a bit and pitched three scoreless to keep the deficit at 4-0. But with Jackson out of the game, the Cardinals added to their lead by quickly getting to reliever Craig Stammen. The Nats reliever has appeared in all three games of the NLDS so far, and he was roughed up for two runs in Game 2.
Stammen hit leadoff hitter Yadier Molina to start the Cards sixth-inning rally. The next batter, Davie Freese, doubled off the wall in right to put the first two men aboard. Freese hit a high drive and it appeared Jayson Werth had a bead on it, but the ball hit just above his glove on the wall. Molina came home for the fifth run of the game on Daniel Descalso's sacrifice fly to right. Werth's throw was late and well off-line, going all the way to the backstop. Freese advanced to third, but Stammen retired the final two batters to keep the damage at just one run.
Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter dodged a couple Nationals scoring threats to get through 5 and 2/3 innings unscathed. The Nats had a hit in each of the first six innings, but failed to plate a run. Washington had a great opportunity to break through against Carpenter in the bottom of the fifth, but a Michael Morse flyout to right left the bases loaded. Carpenter had walked two and gave up a single to Ryan Zimmerman, but the Nationals left fielder could not come through with the bags juiced. Morse had also struck out in the first inning with Jayson Werth on third.
It was pinch hitter Steve Lombardozzi who finally knocked out Carpenter, as the veteran righty exited with men on first and second. Lombardozzi hit for Stammen and took a Carpenter offering through the gap on the right side, forcing Mike Matheny to make the call for Trevor Rosenthal. The Cards reliever was making his first appearance of the series, and he quickly got Werth down 0-2 before inducing a pop out to foul territory to end the inning with Ian Desmond on second.
With just nine outs left, the Nationals offense will need to get to work quickly on the Cards bullpen in the seventh.