In the first inning, former five-star football recruit Matt Holliday slid late at second base, taking out former five-star equestrian recruit Marco Scutaro. I figured Scutaro's 2013 was over, much less his postseason. But he got up and dusted himself off, no worse for wear, apparently.

Remember that aside.

Chris Carpenter got through the bottom of the third by throwing 11 pitches. Ryan Vogelsong got through the top of the fourth with 10 pitches. So it was going to be like that.

In the bottom of the fourth, though, the Giants got to Carpenter. Brandon Belt hit a looping double down the left-field line, and he advanced to second on a Baltimore chop that Gregor Blanco hit over a drawn-in David Freese. That brought up Brandon Crawford, who hit a chopper that was going to be too weak for a play at the plate, but the Cardinals couldn't get the out at first, either:

The error scored Belt, and it allowed Vogelsong to bunt the runners to second and third in his at-bat. A walk to Angel Pagan brought up the aforementioned Scutaro with the bases loaded. Who probably really, really wanted to hit the baseball.

A Disney exec would have had the screenwriter start over because that's a little too on the nose. Scutaro cleared the bases with the help of Holliday's error, and the Giants took a 5-1 lead into the fifth inning.