Cardinals & Brewers Advance to the NLCS

The Milwaukee Brewers did it first on the night by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-2 in game 5, and then the St. Louis Cardinals followed suit by shocking the world with a 1-0 upset of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks can join the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays in watching the NLCS and ALCS from home as they were both eliminated last night in very close games.  The Phillies had baseballs best record all season and looked to be unstoppable heading into the postseason.  The Arizona Diamondbacks are less of a surprise as they are just the best of one of baseballs worst divisions.  Either way, they are both out and the Cardinals and Brewers are in.

Milwaukee is definitely the feel good story of baseball this season.  They won their division for the first time since 1982 when they belonged to a different division, in the American League.  Now they are one step closer to winning the franchises first ever World Series.

In came down to extra innings for the Brew Crew, but they were able to pull it off thanks to a big hit from Nyjer Morgan in the 10th.  His RBI single won the game for Milwaukee and has sent them even further into the postseason.  It's not going to be easy for them though, they now go on to face the St. Louis Cardinals who did some shocking of their own last night.

Going into the post season if you had said that the cardinals were going to beat the Phillies in the first round, everyone (except Cardinal fans) would have laughed at you.  The Phillies were the best team in baseball with the best pitching rotation.  It be the Cardinals however that would out pitch the mighty phillies last night.

Chris Carpenter pitched a complete game for St. Louis.  He held a very dangerous Philly team to just 3 hits over 9 innings.  Philly ace Roy Halladay gave up just 6 hits, but the cards were able to capitalize and get one run across the plate against Doc in the first inning.  It would be the only insurance that Carpenter needed as he pitched an incredible night.

So do the Cardinals have enough to get past the Brewers?  You have to love October in baseball.  It's one of the most unpredictable things in sports.  Lets just hope they can get better ratings for the World Series this year.