Roy Halladay shrugged off a shaky start and Ryan Howard smacked a key home run as Philadelphia rallied to beat St. Louis 11-6 in their Major League Baseball playoff opener.
The Phillies seized a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five National League series, while in Milwaukee the Brewers triumphed 4-1 to take a 1-0 lead over Arizona in their NL series.
Howard belted a three-run homer to key a five-run sixth inning that saw the Phillies take control of their contest.
Halladay, who gave up three runs in the first inning but none the rest of the way, retired his last 21 batters.
"I couldn't think of a worse start and putting your team in a hole like that," Halladay said. "But you get to this point, you're not going to pack it in."
Halladay struck out eight over eight innings, and didn't allow a runner after Skip Schumaker led off the second inning with a single.
"That's why he's the best in the game," Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols said. "We wanted to keep adding on it, but we just never put that inning together again."
Raul Ibanez's two-run shot off Kyle Lohse capped Philadelphia's outburst in the sixth.
Halladay, whose playoff debut last year saw him throw the second no-hitter in post-season history, surrendered a three-run homer to Lance Berkman in the first.
Meanwhile, Cardinals starter Lohse retired the first 10 batters he faced, until allowing Chase Utley's double in the fourth.
In the sixth inning, however, the game got away from Lohse.
With the hosts trailing 3-1, Philadelphia's Jimmy Rollins singled to start the inning.
Utley struck out, then Hunter Pence singled to bring up Howard -- who worked a full count before belting a shot into the second deck of seats in center field to give Philadelphia a 4-3 lead.
"In that situation, I knew he wasn't really going to throw a fastball, so I just sat on the changeup ... he just kind of left one up there hanging for me," Howard said.
Shane Victorino followed with a single and Ibanez's homer made it 6-3 finally chased Lohse.
The Phillies added three runs in the seventh and two in the eighth and had the game well in hand when the Cardinals scored three times in the ninth off relievers Michael Stutes and Ryan Madson.
Game two is on Sunday, when the Phillies send Cliff Lee to the mound against Chris Carpenter.
In Milwaukee, Yovani Gallardo out-pitched Arizona ace Ian Kennedy to help the Brewers open their series with a win.
Gallardo got some support from slugger Prince Fielder, who belted a two-run homer in the seventh.
Gallardo surrendered just one run and four hits in eight innings and matched a Brewers post-season record with nine strikeouts.
Kennedy, who shut out the Brewers on four hits over seven innings on July 21, gave up four runs on eight hits in 6 2/3 innings.
He and Gallardo dueled through three scoreless innings before Milwaukee broke through in the fourth, loading the bases with no outs for Jerry Hairston.
Hairston's sacrifice fly scored Ryan Braun.
Jonathan Lucroy followed Yuniesky Betancourt's two-out triple in the sixth with an RBI single, and Fielder gave Gallardo more breathing room in the next frame with the second post-season home run of his career.
"I just hung that curveball," Kennedy said of the pitch to Fielder.
The homer helped expunge the memory of Fielder's disappointing 1-14 performance in the 2008 playoffs. He finished the game 2 for 4, already better than in 2008.
Arizona got one run on the board against Gallardo in the eighth when Ryan Roberts led off the inning with a home run, but Gallardo responded by striking out the next three batters he faced.
Source: AFP American Edition
