NLDS Game 2: St. Louis Cardinals lead 7-3, trade home runs with Washington Nationals

The St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals traded home runs in the middle innings on Monday. They came from Adam LaRoche (33), Ryan Zimmerman (25), Allen Craig (22), and Daniel Descalso (4.) If you're nervous about the Cardinals' 7-3 lead—well, that seems reasonable. Like the other two postseason games so far this one seems thrown just a little off-axis; the bullpens are going to record more than two-thirds of the outs, every National's defensive prowess seems to have been absorbed by Kurt Suzuki, Pete Kozma made his second outstanding baserunning play in three games.

Now the Cardinals are going to give the ball to Joe Kelly in a Game 2 that seems to have assumed sudden-death stature. Kelly, who didn't seem to have a role on the 2012 Cardinals until he replaced both of today's pitchers, at various times, in the starting rotation. He'll try to hold the lead that Descalso and Kozma gave him.

And Allen Craig and David Freese, to be fair. This is a weird postseason game, but it's not completely unfamiliar.