Recap: St. Louis vs. Los Angeles

By Sports Network

St. Louis, MO (Sports Network) - Vicente Padilla's first playoff start was one to remember, as the right-hander gave the Dodgers seven shutout innings, and Los Angeles advanced to the National League Championship Series for the second straight year with a 5-1 victory over St. Louis at Busch Stadium.

Padilla (1-0), picked up off waivers from Texas earlier in the season, allowed four hits and a walk while fanning four for the Dodgers, who swept the best- of-five series, 3-0, and have now won six straight Division Series games.

The 32-year-old Padilla made eight starts for the NL West-winning Dodgers in the regular season and went 4-0, but none of those outings proved more important than Saturday's performance, which was made possible when Hiroki Kuroda went down with an injury.

Los Angeles will start the NLCS at home on Thursday against either defending World Series champion Philadelphia, which ousted the Dodgers in five games in last year's NLCS, or the Rockies, whom LA beat 14 times this season in 18 games.

The Dodgers are in search of their first championship since 1988, which is the longest drought of any 2009 playoff team that has won a title in its history.

Andre Ethier hit a two-run homer and added a triple for the Dodgers, while Manny Ramirez had three hits and a pair of runs driven in. All five runs LA scored in the game came with two outs.

Albert Pujols had two hits in the game and finished 3-for-10 in the series with no extra-base hits and one run driven in, as the NL Central champion Cardinals lost only their second LDS series in eight attempts.

Matt Holliday, who made a crucial error in Game 2 that helped the Dodgers win, was given a standing ovation in the first inning by the home fans but went 0-for-4 in the contest. Joel Pineiro (0-1) didn't fare as well as his counterpart in his first postseason start, allowing four runs on seven hits in just four innings.

The Cardinals finished their 2009 campaign with 11 losses in 13 games, dating back to the regular season.

The Dodgers got off to a quick start, scoring a run in the first. With one out, Matt Kemp legged out an infield single to shortstop, and Ramirez belted a two-out double to the gap in left-center, easily scoring Kemp as the ball rolled to the wall.

The Cardinals loaded the bases in the home first but failed to score. Consecutive one out singles by Ryan Ludwick and Pujols put runners on first and second with one out, and Holliday's swinging bunt sent them to second and third, respectively.

A walk by Colby Rasmus put three men on base for Yadier Molina, who grounded out weakly to end the frame.

Los Angeles increased its lead in the third, as Ethier crushed a high four- seam fastball on a 3-1 count into the right field seats for a two-out, two-run homer. The blast also scored Rafael Furcal, who had singled earlier in the inning.

Padilla set down St. Louis in order in both the second and third, and the Dodgers added another run in the fourth. Ronnie Belliard began the inning with a single and moved to second on a groundout. Two batters later, Furcal singled sharply down the left field line to score Belliard for a four-run cushion.

Los Angeles' starter continued to dominate from there, using his fastball to retire nine of 10 batters from the fourth through the sixth without allowing a run. Then, in the seventh, the Dodgers scored their fifth two-out run of the game, as Ethier tripled to deep center and scored on Ramirez's single to make it 5-0.

After Molina's double in the seventh for St. Louis went for naught, the Cardinals got on the board in the eighth. George Sherrill began on the mound for LA and walked pinch-hitter Julio Lugo with one out. After Sherrill recorded another out, he was replaced by closer Jonathan Broxton, who allowed Pujols' RBI single after Lugo had stolen second.

Broxton induced a fly out from Holliday to maintain a four-run lead for the Dodgers, then pitched around a one-out single in the ninth to propel LA into the NLCS.