By The Associated Press

Published: Wednesday, October 10, 2012, 4:50 p.m.
Updated: Monday, February 11, 2013

WASHINGTON — Set aside the high-pressure task of postseason pitching that Chris Carpenter routinely masters for the St. Louis Cardinals, and think about this: Even the take-it-for-granted act of breathing feels odd on occasion now that he's missing a rib and two neck muscles.

Taking the mound for only the fourth time in 2012 after complicated surgery to cure numbness on his right side, the 37-year-old Carpenter spoiled the return of postseason baseball to Washington by throwing scoreless ball into the sixth inning, and the defending champion Cardinals beat the Nationals, 8-0, on Wednesday to take a 2-1 lead in their NL Division Series.

“To go from not being able to compete, and not only compete but help your team, to be able to be in this situation,” Carpenter said, “it's pretty cool.”

Rookie Pete Kozma delivered a three-run homer, and a trio of relievers finished the shutout for the Cardinals, who can end the best-of-five series in Thursday's Game 4 at Washington. Kyle Lohse will start for St. Louis. Ross Detwiler pitches for Washington, which is sticking to its long-stated plan of keeping Stephen Strasburg on the sideline the rest of the way.

“We're not out of this by a long shot,” Nationals manager Davey Johnson said. “Shoot, I've had my back to worse walls than this.”

With the exception of Ian Desmond — 3 for 4 on Wednesday and 7 for 12 in the series — the Nationals' hitters are struggling mightily. They've scored a total of seven runs in the playoffs and went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base in Game 3.

Rookie phenom Bryce Harper's woes, in particular, stand out: He went 0 for 5, dropping to 1 for 15. He went to the plate with an ash bat and no gloves in the first inning, and he tried wearing anti-glare tinted contact lenses on a sun-splashed afternoon — nothing helped.

“Nothing I can do,” the 19-year-old said. “I just missed a couple.”

All in all, quite a damper on the day for a Nationals Park-record 45,017 red-wearing, towel-twirling fans witnessing the first major league postseason game in the nation's capital in 79 years. They didn't have much to enjoy, in part because of the problems created by Nationals starter Edwin Jackson, who was on the Cardinals' championship team a year ago.

Carpenter allowed seven hits and walked two across his 52⁄3 innings to improve to 10-2 over his career in the postseason. That includes a 4-0 mark while helping another group of wild-card Cardinals take the title in the 2011 World Series, when he won Game 7 against Texas.

The 10 victories tie Carpenter for seventh most behind Andy Pettitte's record 19.

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