Betting tips / Nick Shiambouros / 09 October 2011 / Leave a comment Bet Now View Market

Milwaukee host St Louis in the first game of the National League Championship Series and Nick Shiambouros can get off to a winning start.

St Louis Cardinals beat the heavily favoured Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 in an epic game 5 on Friday night to advance to the NLCS.

Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter threw a near perfect game, giving up just three hits in what was a truly magical display of pitching. The victory was well deserved.

Roy Halladay also pitched brilliantly for Philadelphia allowing just six hits and one run in eight innings. But he had virtually no help from his offence which was the reason for this bitterly disappointing defeat.

The Cardinals will travel to Milwaukee for the first game of the Championship Series on Sunday. Manager Tony La Russa is playing his cards close to his chest and has yet to announce his starting pitcher.

I suspect he will go with lefty Jaime Garcia who pitched very well in the third game of the Divisional Series, giving up three runs in seven innings. Garcia finished the regular season with a record of 13-7 and an ERA of 3.56.

Another option for La Russa would be to start Kyle Lohse who was on the mound for the first game of the series .This right-hander finished the season with a record of 14-8 and an ERA of 3.39. Lohse is an excellent strikeout pitcher with a good variety of pitches .

Milwaukee beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-2 in ten innings on Friday to make the NLCS for the first time since 1982. With the game tied in the bottom of the tenth Nyjer Morgan drove in the winning run with a single off JJ Putz which sent the Milwaukee faithful in to a frenzy.

This was a thoroughly entertaining series that could have gone either way. The Diamondbacks fought hard but came up a little short when it mattered most.

The Brewers will start right-hander Zack Greinke on Sunday night as this best of seven series gets under way. Greinke finished the regular season with a record of 16-6 and an ERA of 3.83.He has a 2-1 record against the Cardinals this year.

This is a fascinating series between two evenly matched teams but I fancy the Brewers to prevail in five or six games. They finished the regular season with the best home record in baseball at 57-24, a statistic that is hard to overlook in a best of seven format.

Both teams have plenty of offence but the Brewers launched an astonishing 185 home runs during the regular season. In post-season play Brewers left-fielder Ryan Braun is averaging .500 and has scored five runs. He is in sparkling form and is bound to add to that impressive tally.

The great Albert Pujols is averaging .350 for St.Louis and is one of the most feared hitters in the game.He lives for moments like these.

The Brewers should be priced at around [1.7] in the match odds market in Game1.They have been in superb form at Miller Park and I fully expect them to take an early lead in this series.

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