The San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals kick off the National League Championship Series (NLCS) Saturday night.

The Giants had to beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Wild-Card Game and then upset the Washington Nationals, taking both games on the road, to move on to the NLCS winning the series 3-1 while the Cardinals beat current Cy Young Award winner lefty ace Clayton Kershaw twice in the series to defeat the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-1.

Madison Bumgarner (18-10) is going to mound for the Giants while Adam Wainwright (20-9) will be the starter for the Cardinals. Bumgarner was a road warrior this season going 11-4 with a 22. ERA in 18 road starts. Bumgarner is 1-1 with 1.13 ERA in the postseason in two starts and also hitting .258 with four homers and 15 RBIs.

"I don't feel like I deserve that much credit," said Bumgarner. "But it's nice to know you can help your team out a little bit."

Wainwright didn't have such a great start in his Game 1 start against Los Angeles, giving up 11 hits and six runs in 6 1/3 innings pitched. Wainwright admitted on Friday that he's battling an elbow injury that has been bothering him.

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"There's no question Waino has been fighting it," said Cardinals manager Mike Matheny. "I've not made that a secret, and neither has he. It's all going to come down to how he feels. The likelihood of him saying he can't go is very slim, but it is a possibility that something might not feel right."

The Cardinals offense has been clicking in the postseason hitting five home runs against lefty pitching. Third baseman Matt Carpenter has three home runs in the postseason while first baseman Matt Adams hit another key home run in Game 4 of the series.

"It's not the typical left-on-left match-ups, they'll stay in there," said Bumgarner. "They seem pretty comfortable."

The two teams meet in the 2012 NLCS with the Giants moving on to win the World Series. This will be the fifth year in a row in which one of these two teams will march on to the World Series. The Giants championships in 2010 and 2012 World Series while the Cardinals won the 2011 World Series and are looking to make a second straight World Series appearance, third in four years.

"There are a lot of players from 2012 on both sides, and I think you learn from that," said San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy. "It's a different year, though."

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