Even before the first pitch, the Milwaukee Brewers took a swing at the St. Louis Cardinals.

Come Sunday, the Brewers swapped their barbs for bats — and just kept bashing.

Needing a comeback in the NL championship series opener, Milwaukee turned to its power duo of Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, then got a clutch hit from Yuniesky Betancourt to beat the Cardinals 9-6.

The Brewers celebrated wildly as the big hits came during a rapid-fire rally.

“It’s the playoffs, bro,” Fielder said. “You’ve got to let it all out.”

Braun launched a two-run, 463-foot homer in the first inning and added a two-run double during a six-run burst in the fifth. Fielder hit a two-run homer and the typically light-hitting Betancourt added a two-run homer to cap it.

The midgame turnaround came so fast that the crowd wasn’t done cheering Braun’s big hit when Fielder went deep.

“I don’t even know if I heard the ball come off Prince’s bat,” Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. “I knew it was a good swing and came off nice, but when you can’t hear the ball, the sound of it, because of all the people yelling. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen there until I saw the ball flight.”

At least for one game, the bitter NL Central rivals avoided any on-field confrontations in their first postseason matchup since the 1982 World Series.

That’s despite an already tense atmosphere that gained some steam when Brewers starter Zack Greinke let it slip on Saturday that some of his teammates don’t like the Cardinals’ Chris Carpenter — a comment that drew a stern rebuke from Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

Greinke hinted that he heard a few comments from the Cardinals’ dugout Sunday, but he said it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“They’re yelling from the dugout some, but most teams do that,” Greinke said. “Everyone always makes fun of me grunting when I throw a fastball. It’s kind of funny sometimes, but no big deal.”

The atmosphere was tense even before the first pitch, as La Russa was showered with boos during pregame introductions. He calmly tipped his cap to the crowd.

La Russa said afterward that he hoped the tension wouldn’t overshadow the competition — although he said he had a sense that some fans and media members would be disappointed if there aren’t any repeats of the on-field confrontations the teams have had in the recent past.

“I don’t want our players and their players to be egged on, and I don’t think they will,” La Russa said. “We’re going to play as hard and good against each other as we can.”

Greinke struggled at times, but reliever Takashi Saito got Cardinals star Albert Pujols to ground into a key double play in the seventh. Francisco Rodriguez pitched a hitless eighth and closer John Axford threw a hitless ninth for a save.

Game 2 is at Miller Park on Monday night. Shaun Marcum starts for the Brewers against Edwin Jackson.

“We’ll come back out,” Cardinals star Lance Berkman said. “The same thing happened to us in the first game against Philly. We were able to regroup.”

David Freese hit a three-run homer off Greinke in the fourth, and the Cardinals led 5-2 in the fifth.

But Milwaukee made it tough on Cardinals starter Jaime Garcia, who left after giving up Fielder’s homer. Garcia, who hit Fielder with a pitch earlier in the game, gave up six runs and six hits in four-plus innings with three walks. He took the loss.

Greinke earned the win despite his uneven outing, giving up six runs and eight hits in six-plus innings. He left the game to a standing ovation after giving up a leadoff single to Rafael Furcal in the seventh.

The Cardinals took a three-run lead into the fifth before Garcia allowed a leadoff single to Corey Hart and a double to Jerry Hairston Jr. Braun hit a two-run, ground-rule double to right and with the crowd still saluting him, Fielder hit the first pitch from Garcia deep to right for a two-run homer, giving the Brewers the lead.

Fielder then showed off his repertoire of celebrations, giving the team’s “Beast Mode” gesture upon his arrival at home plate and exchanging mock knockout blows with Braun as he trotted back to the dugout.

That was it for Garcia, who left with no outs in the fifth and his team down 6-5. It that wasn’t the end of trouble for the Cardinals, though.

Reliever Octavio Dotel fielded Rickie Weeks’ grounder and threw the ball away, allowing Weeks to go to second on the error.

Betancourt — who batted .252 in the regular season with 13 homers — then sent a 2-1 pitch from Dotel deep to left, where it flew into the Brewers’ bullpen and was fielded on the fly by Milwaukee bullpen catcher Marcus Hanel. Hanel pumped his fist, Betancourt circled the bases and the crowd continued its inning-long eruption.

Betancourt has taken plenty of criticism this season, but might be among the rare group of athletes who say they don’t pay attention to the critics and actually mean it. Through an interpreter, Betancourt said he manages to avoid criticism because he doesn’t speak much English.

“I don’t really pay attention to what the critics say,” Betancourt said.

With the score 8-5, Pujols came to the plate with runners on first and third and no outs in the seventh. Pujols broke his bat on a double-play grounder — a run scored, but the Brewers had limited the damage.

Betancourt doubled in the seventh and scored on a single by Jonathan Lucroy.

The Brewers and Cardinals split an 18-game series evenly this season, a sign of what has been one of baseball’s most intense rivalries in recent years. The Cardinals’ success against the Brewers in the final month of the season was one of the main reasons they climbed back into playoff contention.

St. Louis won six of its last seven games against Milwaukee, including a three-game sweep at Miller Park.

The animosity between the two teams spilled into this week, when Greinke told reporters Saturday that some of his teammates don’t like Carpenter because of his “phony attitude.”

La Russa said he got an umpire’s warning after Garcia hit Fielder with a pitch in the first inning, right after Braun’s homer. But the Brewers said they didn’t think the pitch was intentional, and La Russa said the team’s recent history probably affects the umpires’ attitudes.

“I certainly can’t fault the umpire,” La Russa said. “But, you know, you can’t go out and argue those things, or you get thrown out. I didn’t say anything. What I would have said is, if you watched the way Jaime pitched that whole inning, every fastball he threw was in that same area, out away from the right hander or in on Fielder. They just looked bad, but he was just trying to get the ball somewhere near the glove.”

— Associated Press —

The ultimate ace, it turned out, belonged to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Chris Carpenter tossed a three-hitter to outpitch old pal Roy Halladay in a duel for the ages and St. Louis edged the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 Friday night in the deciding Game 5 of their NL playoff series.

The wild-card Cardinals scored in the first inning when Rafael Furcal led off with a triple and Skip Schumaker followed with a double.

And that was it.

Heavily favored Philadelphia, which featured four accomplished aces in baseball’s best rotation, never broke through against Carpenter. Ryan Howard grounded out to end the game and hurt his leg coming out of the batter’s box — he limped a couple of steps and crumpled to the ground as St. Louis started to celebrate.

“It was some kind of fun,” Carpenter said.

“He’s a great friend of mine,” he said about Halladay, “and like I said, he did a great job tonight also.”

Howard has a left Achilles’ injury and won’t know more about the severity of it until he has an MRI.

The Cardinals needed a monumental collapse by Atlanta in the final month and major help from the 102-win Phillies just to reach the playoffs. Now they’re heading to Milwaukee for the NL championship series starting Sunday following a stunning upset in which they beat three of Philadelphia’s four aces: Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt.

“Actually, I don’t know what to say,” Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. “I just got through talking to our team, and basically when I look at it, we played 162 games, and definitely we had the best record in baseball.”

“I know that we’re capable of going farther in the playoffs. Our goal was to get to the World Series. It’s been that way for two years now,” he said.

To some, the Phillies seemed destined for the World Series because of their big arms. But in a city where the collapse of 1964 is still never too far from memory, and in a town that has endured more than its share of heartbreaks, jinxes and bad luck, a sure thing is never a sure thing.

Trailing two games to one, the Cardinals began their comeback with a win in Game 4. That night in St. Louis, a squirrel scampered across home plate as Schumaker batted in the middle innings — if the Cardinals keep winning, their fans will certainly go nuts, thanks to their “Rally Squirrel.”

Coincidentally, a squirrel was caught at Citizens Bank Park before Game 5. Not a good omen, apparently, for the Phillies.

Three of the majors’ four opening-round matchups went to a deciding Game 5, and all of them were pitching-rich thrillers. Detroit held off the New York Yankees 3-2 on Thursday night, and Milwaukee beat Arizona in 10 innings earlier Friday.

Then, the showdown between Carpenter and Halladay topped them all.

“Roy Halladay is, at this time, probably the best pitcher in the game and we were able to go out and jump ahead, which was huge,” Carpenter said.

“I think guys we’re just relaxed and having fun,” Carpenter said. “We put ourselves into position where everybody was expecting us to have no chance and we just started playing like the team we knew we were. And we were fortunate to get some help back into it with Atlanta losing and we were playing well the rest of that month.”

Carpenter was over 100 pitches when he took the mound in the ninth. He retired Chase Utley on a fly to the warning track in center and got Hunter Pence on a grounder.

Howard was next, and Carpenter got the big slugger to end a most improbable series win.

Catcher Yadier Molina threw his mask toward the mound, Carpenter turned to the left of first looking for someone to celebrate with before his teammates finally got there, led by Albert Pujols. The congregation settled at second base, as just off to the right, while Howard was carried off the field and into his dugout.

Howard took a called third strike with the tying run on second base to end the Phillies’ season last year in the NLCS against San Francisco.

The expectations for Philadelphia were even higher this year after Lee returned. The loss meant the teams with the top two records and payrolls in the majors — the Phillies and Yankees — were gone in the first round, even while holding home-field advantage.

“We had a great team this year. We had a great opportunity,” Pence said. “When you have a team like this, it’s definitely disappointing to not come through.”

Carpenter walked none and struck out three in the matchup of Cy Young Award winners who were longtime teammates in Toronto. The aces had already agreed to take a fishing trip together after this season.

Halladay was outstanding, too, but his year is over. Tagged by the first two batters, he allowed six hits overall, striking out seven in eight innings.

It wasn’t good enough, and now the Phillies will certainly be considered a disappointment in their own town after failing to win a World Series in an all-or-nothing season. The Phillies cruised to their fifth straight NL East title and were hoping to add to the crown to the one they won in 2008.

But nothing less than a second World Series championship in four years was going to be acceptable this season. Everyone from management to players to fans expected the Phillies to win it all.

A sellout crowd that stood and screamed from the first pitch held their heads in disbelief and silently walked out without even booing.

The pesky Cardinals looked nothing like an underdog. They were the best team in the NL down the stretch.

St. Louis trailed the Braves by 10½ games on Aug. 25, but went 23-8 the rest of the way and earned a wild-card berth after Game 162 when Philadelphia completed a three-game sweep in Atlanta.

The Cardinals scored three runs off Halladay in the first inning of the series opener on Lance Berkman’s three-run homer. They got to him again quickly in this one.

Furcal lined a triple to the gap in right-center. He did the same off Lee in Game 2, but was stranded that day.

Not this time.

Schumaker then lined a double to right to put the Cardinals up 1-0, stunning a crowd that expected Halladay to be lights-out.

Albert Pujols followed with a soft liner that second baseman Utley barehanded on one hop and threw out Schumaker at third. After Berkman reached on interference by catcher Carlos Ruiz, Halladay worked out of the jam, needing 33 pitches to get three outs.

Halladay stopped for a brief chat with plate umpire Gary Cederstrom on his way to the dugout. It was a cordial conversation, though Halladay may have expressed displeasure with a few close calls.

One run wouldn’t seem enough against a lineup that features seven regulars who’ve been All-Stars. But nearly everyone except Utley, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino struggled.

Fans in the parking lot before the game talked about trying to unnerve Carpenter the way they famously did to Burt Hooton in Game 3 of the 1977 NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers at old Veterans Stadium.

They made plenty of noise and waved their white-and-red rally towels

Carpenter never flinched.

After Victorino lined a one-out double in the second, Carpenter retired Raul Ibanez on a foul pop and Placido Polanco on a grounder.

The Phillies had runners on first and third with two outs in the fourth, but Ibanez flied out to the warning track in right.

Carpenter allowed a one-out single to Utley in the sixth, but Molina threw him out trying to steal second. Carpenter pumped his fist and hollered at Molina, who became the first catcher to nail Utley stealing this season. Utley had been 14 for 14 and 56 for 58, dating to 2009.

Furcal made an outstanding play to rob Ruiz of a hit in the eighth, diving to his left on a grounder up the middle and throwing out the slow-footed catcher.

This “dream matchup,” as Cardinals manager Tony La Russa called it, lived up to the hype. Halladay and Carpenter grew up together with the Blue Jays, have remained best buddies and often vacation together.

Halladay overcame a shaky start in Game 1 and pitched eight strong innings in an 11-6 win.

Pitching on three days’ rest for the first time in his career, Carpenter struggled last Sunday. He allowed four runs and five hits in three innings in his shortest outing of the season. But the Cardinals rallied from a 4-0 deficit against Lee and beat the Phillies 5-4 to even the series.

Charlie Manuel guessed right, twice.

Tony La Russa, well, he wound up getting second-guessed. And on his 67th birthday.

Pinch-hitter Ben Francisco and closer Ryan Madson made their manager’s moves look smart, and the Philadelphia Phillies held off the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 Tuesday for a 2-1 lead in their NL playoff series.

“To steal a game here, if worse comes to worst, we come back home and we’ve got another game with Doc (Roy Halladay) on the mound,” Phillies slugger Ryan Howard said. “We put ourselves in a great situation.”

Francisco batted for Cole Hamels and broke open a scoreless game with a two-out, three-run homer off Jaime Garcia in the seventh inning. The Cardinals stuck with Garcia instead of opting for a pinch-hitter with two on and two outs in the sixth. Garcia struck out, then lost his pitching touch.

“Well, it didn’t work, so that’s bad managing,” La Russa said. “I’m watching him pitch and was really pleased. I thought he was the guy to continue pitching and I knew the matchups were in our favor. … It didn’t work.”

Madson earned his first multi-inning save of the year. He got Allen Craig to ground sharply into a double play with the bases loaded to escape in the eighth, then worked around Yadier Molina’s RBI single in the ninth.

Manuel’s reasoning: “I figured the game was on the line, and we had to stop them.”

The Phillies, favored to win it all after a franchise-record 102-win season, can finish off the wild-card Cardinals in Game 4 on Wednesday, with Roy Oswalt opposing Edwin Jackson.

The Cardinals are all too familiar with the win-or-else proposition. They won the NL wild card on the final day of the season, erasing a 10½-game deficit on Aug. 25 to overtake the Braves.

“Listen, we flip the page and come back ready to play with the same energy we’ve been having the last six weeks,” said Albert Pujols, who had four hits. “We’ve been in this situation before.”

Francisco’s shot on a 1-0 fastball from Garcia was only his second hit in 19 postseason at-bats. He hit six homers this season, the last on May 25 against the Reds.

Francisco had been preparing for that moment against a lefty, and Manuel said after the game that he might have stuck with Francisco even if the Cardinals had changed pitchers.

“I didn’t know it was a homer, I knew I hit it good,” Francisco said. “I saw it bounce over the fence and just pure excitement, pure joy.”

Hamels struck out eight in six scoreless innings and reversed a disturbing trend after allowing nine homers in September, with a pair of doubles by Pujols the only extra-base hits. He’s a franchise-best 7-4 in the postseason with a 3.09 ERA.

“You don’t want to make mistakes, you don’t want to leave the ball over the plate,” Hamels said. “Every pitch mattered, every inning mattered. I knew I couldn’t let it get out of hand.”

The Cardinals frustrated a season-high crowd of 46,914 by stranding 14 runners. They set a National League record with 169 double-play balls this season.

“Sometimes you’re going to get a bunch of hits, sometimes you’re going to get no hits with men on base,” Pujols said. “I don’t think Allen hit a ball that hard all season like he did with the bases loaded.”

Ryan Theriot also had four hits for St. Louis, a heavy underdog in this series. The Cardinals had runners in scoring position in six innings but came up empty despite three hits in the eighth, including a pinch-hit single by Matt Holliday in only his second appearance of the series.

The Cardinals’ decision to let Garcia bat with two on and two outs in the sixth backfired in a big way. Garcia struck out on Hamels’ 117th pitch and wasn’t the same in the seventh.

The Phillies, held to three hits to that point, doubled that total in the seventh. Shane Victorino led off with a single and moved up on a passed ball before Carlos Ruiz was intentionally walked with two outs. Francisco, who had been 1 for 9 against Garcia, deposited a 1-0 fastball in the visitors’ bullpen in left-center.

Francisco was clutch at the end of the year, getting seven hits in his last 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

Lefty vs. lefty percentages, even against Howard, allowed Garcia to elude trouble until the seventh.

Chase Utley singled with two outs in the sixth, breaking a string of nine straight batters retired by Garcia, and went to second on a wild pitch on an 0-1 delivery to Hunter Pence.

The Cardinals elected for an intentional walk at that point, and the move paid off when Howard, who is 2 for 15 with a homer and an RBI against Garcia counting the playoffs, tapped out weakly to first.

Garcia was at only 74 pitches through six, but needed 26 more in the seventh.

Hamels was up to the task as well, striking out David Freese with two runners on to end the first. The 2008 World Series MVP also got Garcia on a groundout with two on to end the fourth.

— Associated Press —

Cliff Lee has lost his October touch.

Albert Pujols hit a go-ahead single in the seventh inning after Lee blew a four-run lead, and the St. Louis Cardinals rallied past the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4 Sunday night to even their NL playoff matchup at one game each.

The best-of-five series shifts to St. Louis for Game 3 on Tuesday. Cole Hamels will be the third straight All-Star pitcher to face the Cardinals, who’ll send Jaime Garcia to the mound.

The wild-card Cardinals, who got into the postseason only after the Phillies beat Atlanta in Game 162, got the split they were looking for on the road against the team that had the best record in the majors.

Lee hardly looked like the guy who used to be so dominant in the postseason. He gave up five runs and 12 hits, striking out nine in six-plus innings, to lose his third straight playoff start.

“I wasn’t able to make my pitches, so I take full responsibility,” Lee said.

The most sought-after free agent last winter, Lee stunned the baseball world when he spurned the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers to return to the Phillies, who traded him away after he helped them win the 2009 NL pennant.

Lee’s arrival raised Philadelphia’s expectations to all-or-nothing proportions. Anything less than a World Series title won’t be considered a success by fans, players and management.

For a while, it seemed the Phillies had this one under control as they took a 4-0 edge.

After all, Lee is one of the best postseason pitchers in history, and he was 17-9 with a 2.40 ERA and a major league-best six shutouts this season.

Lee was 7-0 with a 1.26 ERA in his first eight playoff starts — 4-0 with the Phillies in 2009 — before losing Games 1 and 5 of the World Series to the San Francisco Giants as a member of the Texas Rangers last year.

He’s 0-3 with a 7.13 ERA in the last three outings.

“Anytime I got a 4-0 lead in the first or second, I feel I have the game well in hand,” Lee said.

Now the Phillies head to St. Louis with no guarantees of any more home games. If they lose two at Busch Stadium, their season is over.

“Nobody is going to hand us anything. We have to earn it,” Lee said.

Pitching on three days’ rest for the first time in his career, Chris Carpenter struggled for the Cardinals.

But one reliever after another did the job for manager Tony La Russa.

Six Cardinals relievers combined to toss six shutout innings, allowing just one hit. Jason Motte finished for a four-out save.

After chipping away for a few innings, the Cardinals took the lead in the seventh. Allen Craig led off with a triple off center fielder Shane Victorino’s glove. A three-time Gold Glove winner, Victorino misplayed the ball. He had to go a long way to make the catch, but overran it and the ball bounced off his glove.

Pujols, who struck out in his previous two at-bats, lined a single over drawn-in shortstop Jimmy Rollins to give St. Louis a 5-4 lead.

Cardinals players jumped up and cheered wildly in the dugout, while Phillies fans sat silently in disbelief. The red-clad faithful had their hearts broken already once Sunday.

Just a few hours earlier, the Eagles blew a 20-point lead and lost 24-23 to the San Francisco 49ers in an NFL game across the street.

Many fans walked over to watch the two-sport doubleheader, and the crowd of 46,575 was the largest in the eight-year history of Citizens Bank Park.

On a chilly night when the gametime temperature was 50 degrees, Lee was the only starter in short sleeves.

Maybe he got cold.

Clinging to a 4-3 lead, Lee got the first two outs in the sixth. Then Ryan Theriot lined a two-out double to left and Jon Jay followed with an opposite-field single to left. Theriot slid home safely ahead of Raul Ibanez’s high throw to tie it at 4.

Down 4-0, the Cardinals started their rally in the fourth. Lance Berkman walked and Yadier Molina hit a one-out infield single. Theriot sliced an RBI double down the right-field line and Jay followed with an RBI single to get St. Louis within 4-2.

Jay advanced to second on the throw to the plate, and Carpenter was pulled for pinch-hitter Nick Punto. Lee fired a 92 mph fastball by Punto for the second out.

But Rafael Furcal followed with a line-drive single to left. Theriot scored and Jay came rumbling around the bases. Ibanez made a perfect one-hop throw and the ball arrived along with Jay. He slammed into catcher Carlos Ruiz, his left forearm knocking the stocky catcher backward. But Ruiz held to temporarily prevent the tying run from scoring. Lee, backing up the plate, pumped his fist while Ruiz calmly picked up his mask and jogged to the dugout.

Carpenter, the 2005 NL Cy Young Award winner, allowed four runs and five hits in three innings. It was the shortest outing of the season for Carpenter, who led the NL with 237 1/3 innings pitched this year.

The bullpen bailed him out.

“We felt real good about ourselves,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “We got Carpenter out of the game early, and we were trying to get into their bullpen. The big problem was that their bullpen held us.”

Fernando Salas retired all six batters he faced, and Octavio Dotel set down five in a row to earn the win. Marc Rzepczynski gave up a two-out single to Rollins in the seventh, ending a streak of 15 straight batters retired. Rzepczynski left after hitting Chase Utley to start Philadelphia’s eighth.

Mitchell Boggs came in and got Hunter Pence to ground into a forceout. Arthur Rhodes replaced him and struck out Ryan Howard. Then it was Motte’s turn.

The Phillies, who overcame a 3-0 first-inning deficit in Game 1, took a 3-0 lead in the first in this one.

Rollins lined a double off the right-field fence and Utley and Pence walked to load the bases. Howard, who hit the go-ahead three-run homer in the sixth inning Saturday, then hit a sharp single up the middle to score two runs. His grounder appeared to hit the rubber and took an odd bounce on its way to center field.

Carpenter retired Victorino on a shallow fly, but Ibanez hit an RBI single to left to make it 3-0.

Rollins got things started again in the second with a two-out double off the top of the right-field fence. After Utley walked, Pence lined an RBI single to right for a 4-0 lead.

— Associated Press —