Carlos Beltran goes through the receiving line after a home run during the NLDS. He added his third homer of the offseason Sunday night against San Francisco.

The Cardinals scored quickly but seemed to try to let it go just as fast. Thankfully, the Cardinals bullpen was strong!

David Freese hit a beautiful homer in the second inning off Madison Bumgarner and scored Yadier Molina. In the fourth, Carlos Beltran, who was booed at every bat by the Giants fans at AT&T Park, hit a bomb off of Bumgarner to score Jon Jay.

Lance Lynn got two outs in the fourth inning but seemingly lost focus on the mound and gave up four runs. While it wasn’t quick enough for some of our favorite arm chair managers on Twitter, Mike Matheny brought in Joe Kelly as quickly as he could. Down 6-4, Kelly quickly got the out.

It was a tense game, but the bullpen for both clubs shut it down. Whew!

The Cardinals and Giants take the field for Game 2 at 7 p.m. on Monday. The game will be televised on Fox. Chris Carpenter takes the mound for the Cards against Ryan Vogelsong.

Miranda Remaklus is lead St. Louis Cardinals contributor to Aaron Miles’ Fastball. She’s also lead writer for Aerys Offsides in the NFL section. Follow her on Twitter, @missmiranda.