Card starter's been here; LA's just got here

LOS ANGELES - Three years ago, Adam Wainwright was the accidental closer when the Cardinals won the World Series. A starter his entire life, he became the closer in September and the postseason. He was brilliant.

A starter now, he has been equally brilliant. He won 19 games this year and will start Game 2 of the NLDS tonight at Dodger Stadium. If you get the last out of the World Series, you won't be intimidated by much of anything.

"As a reliever, as a greenhorn reliever, I didn't know what to expect or how to go about anything," Wainwright said before the Dodgers won Game 1 last night, 5-3. "I just followed everyone else. I was a young guy. That's what you do. You make sure you're on time and you follow some veteran somewhere doing something, whereas now I've been to the playoffs, one time only, but we went all the way.

"I know what to expect. I know what the crowd and the opposing team's going to try to do, and I'm just going to go out there and try to make pitches."

There is nothing subtle about Wainwright. He comes out firing until he can fire no more.

"I'm going to give you all I've got for as long as I can give it to you, and that's the best approach that works for me," he said. "And it took a little while. It's taken several adjustments every year to get that."

When he worked out of a bases-loaded situation against the Cubs this year, pitching coach Dave Duncan told him: "You take that approach, that mentality that you brought today when all those guys were on base, you take that approach every day, every time you pitch, every inning, every batter, every pitch, you might go out there and win the Cy Young."

Wainwright will get votes for the 2009 Cy Young that likely will go to teammate Chris Carpenter, who started Game 1. But there could be one with his name on it before too long. He is that talented.

Dodgers manager Joe Torre will start 21-year-old Clayton Kershaw tonight. He was the No. 7 pick in the 2006 draft.

"We've tried to protect this kid the last year or so from any outside pressures or game pressures and watch his pitch count and then you hand him the ball Saturday and he wins a game that we couldn't win for a week," Torre said.

Kershaw didn't actually win it, but he gave the Dodgers enough that they beat the Rockies and finally clinched the NL West that they had seemed to be trying to blow in the final week.