National League Division Series
Game 4 - St. Louis leads series 2-1
First pitch: Tuesday, 5:05 p.m. ET
Line: Los Angeles -165, St. Louis +155, Total: 6.5

The Cardinals look to move on to the NLCS with a victory over the Dodgers at home on Tuesday night in Game 4 of their NL Division Series.

After scoring nine runs in the series opener, Los Angeles has had an offensive power outage over the past two contests, plating a mere four runs, including just one run on seven hits in Monday’s 3-1 loss. The Dodgers were a very poor 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position on Monday, as they could not back a quality start from Hyun-Jin Ryu (6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 4 K's). SS Hanley Ramirez was 3-for-4 with the only RBI in the game for L.A., making him 6-for-11 with 2 RBI in this series. St. Louis got a big outing by veteran John Lackey (7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 8 K's) in Monday night’s contest, and saw both 3B Matt Carpenter and 2B Kolten Wong hit home runs. The long ball from Carpenter was his third in as many games, as he is 6-for-12 with 7 RBI so far in the NLDS. The Dodgers will look to their ace, LHP Clayton Kershaw (21-3, 1.77 ERA in regular season), to extend this series, while youngster RHP Shelby Miller (10-9, 3.74 ERA) tries to send the Cardinals to the National League Championship. Despite Monday's loss, the Dodgers still have the majors' best road record at 49-33 (.598), while St. Louis improved its MLB-best home mark to 52-30 (.634). These clubs are dead even (17-17) when facing each other over the past three seasons, while the Cardinals have managed to put up great performances at home, going 10-5. L.A. is an impressive 21-5 (.808) on the road after having lost two of three games this year, but St. Louis is 41-19 (.683) versus a starting pitcher who throws 6.5+ innings per start over the past two seasons. Even after playing 165 games, these teams have no significant injuries coming into this important game.

Clayton Kershaw had yet another phenomenal season in 2014, pitching to a career-low 1.77 ERA while striking out a career-high 10.9 batters per nine innings. He also had career-best numbers in walk rate (1.4 BB/9) and homers allowed (0.41 HR/9) while leaving 81.6% of runners on base. While he has always been dominant in the regular season, he has been horrible in the playoffs, going 1-4 over 10 games (7 starts) with a 5.20 ERA and 1.27 WHIP, while serving up five homers and 16 walks in his 45 innings of work. He has allowed at least eight runs in each of his past two playoff starts, which included giving up eight runs on eight hits (2 HR) in 6.2 frames in the first game of this series. Overall in his time against St. Louis, he is 5-5 with a 3.46 ERA and 1.27 WHIP, but has a high amount of walks (34) over 88.1 innings of work. OF Peter Bourjos (4-for-11, 1 HR, 2 RBI) has the lone homer off Kershaw in the Cardinals lineup while OF Jon Jay (1-for-8, 5 K's) and SS Jhonny Peralta (2-for-10, 4 K's) have cowered versus the lefty. The Dodgers’ bullpen has not been strong this season, going 19-25 (.432) with a 3.86 ERA and 1.32 WHIP while converting 48-of-61 (79%) save opportunities. Closer Kenley Jansen (2.76 ERA, 44 saves in regular season) has saved one game so far in this postseason after striking out 13.9 batters per nine innings during the year.

Shelby Miller has had double-digit victories in each of the past two seasons, but saw a dramatic dip in his strikeout rate (6.3 K/9) in 2014 after striking out 8.8 batters per nine innings last year. While his strikeouts dropped, so did his control as he walked far too many batters (3.6 BB/9) and allowed more than a home run per inning (1.08 HR/9). He also benefited from some luck over the course of the regular season with batters hitting .256 BABIP against him. This will be Miller's first start in the playoffs as he has pitched three games in relief previously, posting a 6.23 ERA over 4.1 frames. Miller has also done poorly in his five games (3 starts) against the Dodgers in his career with a 6.57 ERA and 1.87 WHIP while striking out 5.8 batters per nine innings. No batter on Los Angeles has had more than seven at-bats against the young righty while 1B Adrian Gonzalez (4-for-7, 1 HR, 4 RBI) has performed well in the matchup. On the other hand, C A.J. Ellis (0-for-4) and 3B Juan Uribe (1-for-5) have not done so well. The relievers on the Cardinals have gone 27-24 (.529) this year with a 3.65 ERA and 1.22 WHIP while getting the save in 57-of-74 (77%) chances. Closer Trevor Rosenthal (3.20 ERA, 45 saves in regular season) earned his second save of this series on Monday night while allowing four hits and a run in two postseason innings.