Giants force Game 7

SAN FRANCISCO – Ryan Vogelsong and the San Francisco Giants saved their season once more, pushing St. Louis to a winner-take-all Game 7 in the National League Championship Series.

Turns out the defending champion Cardinals aren’t the only team that’s tough to put away in October.

Vogelsong struck out a career-best nine batters in another postseason gem, and the Giants avoided elimination for a second straight game by beating St. Louis 6-1 on Sunday night.

Marco Scutaro delivered a two-run double and Buster Posey drove in his first run of the series with a groundout in the first inning as San Francisco struck early to support Vogelsong.

San Francisco’s Matt Cain and St. Louis’ Kyle Lohse are set to pitch in a rematch of Game 3, won by the Cardinals. There’s a forecast of rain in the Bay Area during the day.

“It’s kind of a joke in the clubhouse. About 60 percent of my games have rain in the forecast,” Lohse said. “I know these guys, I’ve seen them for six games. I know what I need to do. … It’s time to get it done.”

These wild-card Cardinals sure seem to like the all-or-nothing route in October, while San Francisco thrives on playing from behind.

Five games with their year on the line, five wins for these gutsy Giants this postseason. Now, it comes down to one game for the past two World Series champions to get back, with the Detroit Tigers waiting.

Pitching to chants of “Vogey! Vogey!” from the sellout crowd of 43,070 at AT&T Park, the right-hander didn’t allow a hit until Daniel Descalso’s broken-bat single to center with two outs in the fifth. Vogelsong struck out the side in the first and had already fanned five through two innings.

“This place is going to be loud, I can tell you that,” Vogelsong said of tonight.

The Cardinals managed their only run on Craig’s two-out single in the sixth. St. Louis had gone 15 innings without scoring after left-hander Barry Zito won 5-0 on Friday in Game 5.

“I just tried to do really the same thing he did, come out and set the tone early for us,” Vogelsong said.

Vogelsong had his second stellar seven-inning outing against the Cardinals in a week, allowing four hits and one run. He walked one in a 102-pitch performance and lowered his postseason ERA – all this year – to 1.42.

“I just believe that it’s my time,” Vogelsong said.

After taking a 3-1 lead back home at Busch Stadium, Mike Matheny’s Cardinals will have to find some offense in a hurry if they want to get back to the World Series.

“We’ve got to make some adjustments but our team’s done that all season,” Matheny said.

The Giants got to St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter again. The Cardinals winningest postseason pitcher with 10 victories looked out of sync for the second straight start – and he left with a nearly identical line as in his 7-1 Game 2 loss here last Monday, down to the hits, earned runs, unearned runs and innings.

Carpenter was done in by one big inning this time, too. He allowed six hits and five runs, two earned, in four innings.

Vogelsong reached on shortstop Pete Kozma’s fielding error in the second, scoring Brandon Belt after he led off the inning with a triple. Scutaro came up two batters later and doubled home two more runs.

Giants 6, Cardinals 1

E—Kozma (1), G.Blanco (1). LOB—St. Louis 6, San Francisco 7. 2B—Beltran (3), Scutaro (3), Sandoval (1), G.Blanco (1). 3B—Belt (1). RBIs—Craig (2), Scutaro 2 (4), Sandoval (5), Posey (1), Vogelsong (1), Theriot (3). RLSP—St. Louis 2, San Francisco 3. RISP—St. Louis 1 for 3; San Francisco 3 for 10. RMU—Posey.

IR-S—Mujica 2-1, S.Casilla 1-0. IBB—B.Crawford. T—2:55. A—43,070 (41,915).