Cardinals, Nationals square off in surprising NLCS

The St. Louis Cardinals host the Washington Nationals on Friday in game one of a National League Championship Series that no one following Major League Baseball was expecting. The Los Angeles Dodgers, winners of a whopping 106 regular-season games, appeared to be steaming toward a third straight World Series appearance when they took a 2-1 lead over the Nationals in their best-of-five National League Division Series. But the Nats -- who looked dead in the water after a 19-31 start to the season and needed a late three-run rally to edge Milwaukee in the wild card game -- rallied from a three-run deficit to stun the Dodgers 7-3 in 10 innings in the series decider.