Dodgers, Cardinals take playoff openers

ATLANTA (AP)– Give Clayton Kershaw a 5-0 lead by the fourth inning, and there’s not much chance he’ll mess things up.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are off to quite a start in the NL division series.

Kershaw struck out 12 during seven dominant innings, Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run homer and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves, 6-1, in Game 1 on Thursday night.

The big-money Dodgers haven’t won a World Series championship since 1988 – by far their longest dry spell since the franchise moved from Brooklyn to Southern California in 1958.

In an interesting twist, Kershaw was born the same year as that most recent title. If the ace left-hander keeps pitching the way he did in his first postseason win, the Dodgers might have a chance to go all the way again.

“This one definitely has special meaning to me,” Kershaw said.

In St. Louis, Carlos Beltran, Adam Wainwright and the St. Louis Cardinals gave Pittsburgh a quick reality jolt.

Beltran’s three-run homer sparked a seven-run third inning and the Cardinals got seven stingy innings from Wainwright to open their NL division series with a 9-1 rout of the Pirates.

“To be able to get out on a good first step and play well today I think is big for our guys confidence-wise,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. “Gives us an opportunity to just take some momentum, and momentum is big right now when you talk about a five-game series.”

The first eight Cardinals reached safely in the third to chase A.J. Burnett, saddling the right-hander with the second-shortest outing of his career and putting Game 1 out of reach early.

A sellout crowd roared and then settled in for an easy victory by the NL Central champions, making their third consecutive trip to the postseason.

“Game 164 was rough,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “One of the things we’ve been good at is we don’t overcook things.”

Lance Lynn (15-10) faces Pittsburgh rookie Gerrit Cole (10-7) in Game 2 on Friday.

After a record 20 straight losing seasons, the Pirates are back in the playoffs for the first time since 1992. They entered their first best-of-five division series with plenty of momentum after beating Cincinnati in the wild-card game Tuesday, but Pittsburgh never threatened to rally against Wainwright and finished with only four hits.

Pittsburgh also was sloppy in the field, committing three errors. St. Louis was sharp on defense, with reliever Carlos Martinez turning in the top play by slinging an off-balance throw to first to nip Russell Martin in the eighth.

For the bumbling Braves, it was another dose of October misery.

“When you have an opposing pitcher on the mound who is as good as Kershaw, there’s not a lot of room for error,” said Atlanta starter Kris Medlen, knocked out in the fifth. “I had a lot of error tonight.”

Game 2 in the best-of-five series is Friday night in Atlanta, with Zack Greinke (15-4) starting for the Dodgers against Mike Minor (13-9).

Kershaw, who had a 1.83 ERA during the regular season, limited the Braves to Chris Johnson’s run-scoring single with two outs in the fourth. That just seemed to make the pitcher mad – he struck out Andrelton Simmons to end Atlanta’s only serious threat, and the next five Braves hitters for good measure.