PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 7 (UPI) -- Veteran Scott Carpenter threw a masterful three-hitter Friday that carried St. Louis into the NL Championship Series with a 1-0 win over Philadelphia.
The Cardinals, who began the month of September 9 1/2 games behind Atlanta in the wild-card race, eliminated the team that began the playoffs as the decided favorite to win the World Series.
Philadelphia won 102 regular-season games, the most in the history of a franchise that began playing baseball in 1883. The Phillies and their outstanding pitching corps had been trying to reach the World Series for the third time in four years, including 2008, when they won the title.
St. Louis knocked out Philadelphia in a division series that went the full five games. The Cardinals will play Game 1 of the NLCS in Milwaukee Sunday, the Brewers also winning a Game 5 Friday against Arizona.
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Carpenter showed no signs of post-season brilliance when he worked in the second game of the series with Philadelphia, giving up four runs on five hits in just three innings. St. Louis eventually rallied to win that game 5-4.
Five days later, the 15-year veteran threw 110 pitches and only once allowed more than one base runner in an inning. That came in the fourth when he hit a batter and gave up a two-out single to Shane Victorino.
Carpenter then got Raul Ibanez on a fly ball to right to end in the inning.
Chase Utley threw a scare into the Cardinals leading off the ninth, but his deep fly ball died on the warning track in center. Hunter Pence then grounded out to third and Ryan Howard hit a grounder to second to end the game and Philadelphia's season.
Howard twisted his left ankle leaving the batter's box and the night ended with St. Louis players celebrating less than 20 yards from where Howard was sprawled in pain on the ground.
The only run of the game came very quickly, when Roy Halladay surrendered a leadoff triple to Rafael Furcal in the first and an RBI double to Skip Schumaker. Halladay, the winning pitcher in Game 1 of the series, gave up six hits in eight innings.
The game brought an end to a riveting first round of the playoffs in which 11 of the 19 games were decided by one or two runs. The concluding game of all four series was a one-run affair.
