Cardinals 10, Dodgers 9: Matt Carpenter belted a solo homer in the sixth inning before his three-run double highlighted an eight-run seventh as visiting St. Louis overcame a five-run deficit and held on to win Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

Matt Holliday capped the lopsided inning with a three-run blast for the NL Central-champion Cardinals, who did the majority of the damage against two-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw (0-1). Matt Adams and Jon Jay added RBI singles, Marco Gonzales (1-0) worked a scoreless inning to pick up the victory and Trevor Rosenthal allowed Dee Gordon's RBI groundout in the ninth before striking out Yasiel Puig with a runner on third to secure the save.

A.J. Ellis belted a two-run homer to highlight his four-hit performance and Adrian Gonzalez added a two-run shot in the eighth to trim St. Louis' lead to 10-8. Matt Kemp slapped a run-scoring single among his three hits and Carl Crawford ripped an RBI ground-rule double to extend his postseason hitting streak to a franchise-record 11 games for the NL West-champion Dodgers, who host Game 2 on Saturday.

With St. Louis nursing a 1-0 lead in the third, tempers flared and the benches emptied after Adam Wainwright drilled Puig in the back with a pitch. The skirmish seemed to ignite Los Angeles, which scored twice in the third, fourth and fifth innings to claim a 6-1 lead.

Kershaw rebounded after surrendering Randal Grichuk's first-inning homer to retire 16 straight batters before Carpenter's blast to right-center field. The 21-game winner unraveled in the seventh and was chased after Carpenter's double gave the Cardinals a 7-6 lead before Holliday deposited a first-pitch fastball from Pedro Baez over the wall in left.

GAME NOTEBOOK: After yielding just two solo homers for the lone hits in the first six innings, Kershaw recorded only two more outs and exited after allowing eight runs on as many hits. Wainwright, who won 20 games this season, also struggled and departed after permitting six runs on 11 hits in 4 1/3 frames. ... Tempers also flared in last season's NLCS as Dodgers SS Hanley Ramirez was drilled by a pitch from then-Cardinal RHP Joe Kelly. Ramirez was hampered by his ailing ribs throughout the series, which was won in six games by St. Louis. ... Grichuk became the fourth Cardinals player in the last 80 years to belt a homer in his first postseason game, joining Mike Shannon, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen. ... Kershaw became the first pitcher in history to allow at least seven earned runs in back-to-back playoff starts.