http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/sports/baseball/giants-torment-adam-wainwright-as-cardinals-struggle-to-hit-in-opener.html 2014-10-12 06:43:31 Giants Torment Adam Wainwright as Cardinals Struggle to Hit in Opener Madison Bumgarner held the Cardinals scoreless for seven and two-thirds innings as the Giants won to take the National League Championship Series opener. === ST. LOUIS — After the Recalling the conversation Saturday, Baer chuckled. He was no ring expert. But, he said, the two franchises shared notes, from their marketing departments to their front offices. A few months ago, Baer called DeWitt two or three times a week to chat about the future of the game. They saw eye to eye on most issues. “We have similar cultures, top to bottom,” Baer said of the franchises. That included a culture of consistency, he added, and of winning. The two of them combined to win three of the last four World Series titles. Now that they are playing each other in the National League Championship Series, one of them will play in the World Series for a fifth consecutive year. The differences between them Saturday seemed minor, a play here or there, and the Giants prevailed, In other words, the Giants looked like themselves. The Cardinals — a team that had just beaten Clayton Kershaw, the presumptive Cy Young Award winner, twice — did not. The Giants tormented Wainwright, starting in the second inning, when they turned a fortuitous double, a walk, two bloop singles and an error into two runs. Pablo Sandoval led off the inning with a fly ball to right field. The Cardinals’ Randal Grichuk drifted back and caught the ball, but as he hit the wall and fell to the ground, it popped out of his glove, and Sandoval ended up at second. Hunter Pence worked a seven-pitch walk. Brandon Belt singled to load the bases. Travis Ishikawa singled with one out, scoring a run. Then, with two outs, a ground ball trickled through the legs of Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter, allowing another run to score. Wainwright needed 36 pitches to finish the inning. Leading up to the game, the health of his right elbow had been somewhat uncertain. He felt discomfort in the back of his elbow during the season and recently aggravated the problem. He had had Tommy John surgery in 2011, too, which added to the speculation. On Friday, Wainwright acknowledged that the elbow had affected him during his first playoff start this year, a poor outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers. But he maintained that he could pitch through it. “It’s fine,” he said. “You know what? It’s October.” Wainwright was obviously not sharp Saturday, but his defense did not help much, either. After two Giants singled to start the third, the Cardinals’ middle infielders botched a potential double-play ball at second base and had to settle for one out. The next batter, Belt, battled Wainwright in a seven-pitch at-bat that ended with a sacrifice fly. The Giants chased Wainwright in the fifth inning, having made him throw 98 pitches to get 14 outs. He limited the damage to three runs (two earned) on six hits. But the Cardinals will have to re-evaluate his status for the rest of the series. Making matters worse for the Cardinals, Wainwright’s counterpart, Bumgarner, was nearly unhittable. Over the first six innings, the Cardinals managed two singles off him, never had multiple runners on base and advanced to second base only once. There was no shame in that; Bumgarner had already used this postseason to further establish himself as one of baseball’s elite pitchers. His first start was a four-hit shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In his second, he pitched well against the Washington Nationals, but was undone by his own throwing error. With his start Saturday, Bumgarner has compiled a 0.76 earned run average and 23 strikeouts over 232/3 innings in these playoffs. He finally faced real drama in the seventh. With two runners on and one out, the Cardinals’ Kolten Wong hit a ground ball to first base, and Bumgarner ran to cover the bag. Sensing the speedy Wong closing in, Bumgarner slid to tag Wong and bumped him out of the base path. The crowd booed, and the Cardinals challenged the play, but the umpires ruled Wong out. The Cardinals sent a pinch-hitter, Tony Cruz, to the plate, with runners on second and third. During the at-bat, Bumgarner stepped off the mound, and Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny appeared to plead for the umpires to call a balk. They did not. Bumgarner struck out Cruz swinging, clenched his fist and shouted.