http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/08/sports/baseball/cardinals-solve-dodgers-clayton-kershaw-again-and-head-to-nlcs.html 2014-10-08 03:18:41 Cardinals Solve Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw Again and Head to N.L.C.S. Kershaw, widely considered the best pitcher in baseball, surrendered a three-run homer to Matt Adams, and the Dodgers and their ace fell short in October once more. === ST. LOUIS — If Clayton Kershaw had won all his starts against the Instead he has lost all four, including Game 4 of this N.L. division series at Busch Stadium on Tuesday. The Cardinals cut down baseball’s best pitcher yet again, with Matt Adams’s three-run homer in the seventh inning propelling them to a 3-2 victory and their fourth N.L.C.S. in a row. The Cardinals are the first team to reach four consecutive league championship series since the Yankees did it in the American League from 1998 to 2001. The Dodgers, meanwhile, extended their drought without a pennant to 26 years. Kershaw is a lock to win his third N.L. Cy Young Award in four seasons, and perhaps his first Most Valuable Player award. But he cannot solve the Cardinals, who beat him twice in the N.L.C.S. last October, and twice in this series, both times with eruptions in the seventh inning. In Game 1 at Dodger Stadium last Friday, they blitzed Kershaw for six hits and runs in the seventh en route to a 10-9 victory. With their season in the balance on Tuesday, the Dodgers turned to Kershaw on three days’ rest and again got six strong innings. But Matt Holliday led off the seventh with a single to center, and Jhonny Peralta lifted a single to shallow left, just over Hanley Ramirez’s glove. Kershaw threw a strike to Adams, then hung a curveball that Adams did not miss. Adams pounded the pitch into the Cardinals’ bullpen and did a little victory leap as he trotted to first. Kershaw, reliving a nightmare, bent forward on the mound, his back to the plate, his glove and his hand on his knees, staring at the ground until Adams had rounded second base. The Cardinals, who hit the fewest home runs in the N.L. this season, ripped seven in four games off the Dodgers. They are similar, in this way, to their cross-state rivals. The Kansas City Royals hit the fewest homers in the A.L., but hit four in three games to sweep the Los Angeles Angels. Kershaw went 21-3 with a 1.77 earned run average in the regular season, becoming the first pitcher to lead the majors in E.R.A. four years in a row. October offered a chance for a coronation, as with Sandy Koufax in 1963 and 1965, Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 and Orel Hershiser in 1988. All were Dodgers aces whose six-month mastery carried over to the fall. Kershaw has not done it. For his career, he is 1-5 with a 5.12 E.R.A. in the postseason. He had no decision in his first career playoff start, also against St. Louis, in 2009. In his four starts against them the last two Octobers, he is 0-4 with a 6.94 E.R.A. Don Mattingly, the Dodgers’ manager, had no doubts that Kershaw could handle an elimination game on short rest. If Kershaw could win on Tuesday, the Dodgers could then turn to their other ace, Zack Greinke, in Game 5 at home on Thursday. “He’s going to be fine,” Mattingly said. “We don’t have any worries or concerns about how Clayton is going to handle anything.” Mattingly’s more surprising call for Game 4 was the benching of Yasiel Puig, the All-Star center fielder. Puig had eight strikeouts in his last nine at-bats, and Mattingly used his outfield depth to start Andre Ethier, a left-handed hitter, against the right-hander Shelby Miller. Miller was an afterthought last October, on the roster through the World Series but limited to one relief inning all month. The Cardinals believed Miller was stronger down the stretch this season, and he earned his first postseason start. Miller did what he always does: dare hitters to touch his fastball. He threw nothing but fastballs in the top of the first inning, and the Dodgers went down in order, twice by strikeout. They did not advance a runner past second base in the first five innings. But Miller needed 22 pitches to wade through the fifth, and the effects started showing in the sixth. He faced five batters that inning, and four reached base. The exception was Matt Kemp, whose double-play grounder scored the Dodgers’ first run. Their second scored when Juan Uribe greeted Seth Maness with a single to the gap in right-center. The Dodgers wasted a chance for more when Ethier strayed too far off third on a ball in the dirt, then failed to slide back to the bag as Yadier Molina threw him out. But the Dodgers again had a lead for Kershaw, 2-0 this time, and the Cardinals looked almost helpless. Pitching from the sunlight in the first inning, with the batter’s box in shadows, Kershaw struck out the side in style, finishing Matt Carpenter with a curveball, Randal Grichuk with a slider and Holliday with a fastball. Ramirez helped Kershaw in the second, ranging to his backhand for a grounder by Matt Adams and flipping from his knees to start a double play. The next inning, Grichuk singled and made it to third, but Kershaw struck out Peralta on a curveball to end the inning, pumping his fist as he left the mound. Kershaw showed off his full arsenal again in the sixth, in another display of dominance. Pete Kozma, Carpenter and Grichuk each went down swinging on different pitches — a curve for Kozma, a fastball for Carpenter, a slider for Grichuk. That was Kershaw’s 94th pitch; in Game 4 last October, when Kershaw worked on three days’ rest against Atlanta, Mattingly pulled him after six innings and 91 pitches. In that case, though, the Dodgers were not facing elimination. Now they were, and their bullpen did not stir. Kershaw batted for himself in the seventh, and stayed in. There was nobody in the bullpen Mattingly trusted more than Kershaw. His ace — the premier pitcher in the major leagues — had just sliced through Carpenter and Grichuk, the two Cardinals who had homered off him in Game 1. But these are the Cardinals in October, when the best pitcher in baseball is the one they most love to face.