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Next game: Wednesday, October 12th at St. Louis in NLCS Game 3
Brewers Gameday with the Jockey Pregame Show at 6:30 p.m. and Brewers Extra Innings after the game on Newsradio 620 WTMJ with coverage on Live at 10 on TODAY'S TMJ4

MILWAUKEE - The Milwaukee Brewers are heading to St. Louis for Games 3, 4 and 5 of the National League Championship Series after getting blown out in Game 2 by the Cardinals, 12-3.

FSWisconsin Brewers color commentator Bill Schroeder told Newsradio 620 WTMJ's Greg Matzek and Gene Mueller on Wisconsin's Morning News that the key to winning Game 3 is quickly getting a lead in what promises to be a fantastic pitching matchup between Miwaukee's Yovani Gallardo (17-10, 3.52 ERA during the 2011 regular season) and the Cardinals' Chris Carpenter (11-9, 3.45 ERA).

"It's an old cliché, but take advantage of every opportunity you get off Carpenter," said Schroeder.  

"It's going to be important to get to him early, because once he settles in, he's tough.  That's the same mode with Gallardo, too.  If there's any chink in the armor, they both give up some early inning runs, but once they settle in, it's going to be tough.  Get on top, take the crowd out of it just like the Cardinals took the crowd out of it yesterday at Miller Park, took it out early, and that's what the Brewers are going to have to do, establish themselves early in Game 3 in St. Louis."

Schroeder explained that Carpenter has had a season that started with subpar performances, but has ended up to where he "is back to his old Cy Young Award days."

"He started out terribly, had a miserable start this season.  His April numbers were horrendous, but after that, he started to put things together, had a great finish to the season, and he put together a really nice start against Milwaukee in the latter part of the year.  1-0 against the Phillies in Philadelphia, that's not an easy thing to do, so the Brewers have their work cut out for them.  You know you don't expect to put up big run totals."

Milwaukee is coming off the blowout loss Monday night where Albert Pujols put up five RBI's in an offensive explosion for the Cardinals.

"The Cardinals are a heck of a good hitting team," warned Schroeder. 

"When you look up and down that lineup, you have David Freese hitting seventh, that's a pretty daunting lineup.  If you don't make your pitches, they're going to hit you.  They're going to sting you pretty good."

That last sentence certainly described the night pitcher Shawn Marcum had for Milwaukee.  He gave up five earned runs and seven hits in just four innings.

"His pitches were up in the zone.  You remember just about all season long, he was arguably the most consistent starter from the beginning of the year to probably the end of August.  Right now, everything seems to be up in the zone.  He's not able to locate in the corners.  He's getting behind.  When a guy is throwing 88, tops, you can't be getting into 2-0, 3-1 counts against these playoff-caliber hitters.  You make mistakes, you leave off-speed pitches in the strike zone, they're going to be smacking them pretty good.  That seems to be what's happening.  Hopefully he turns things around."