The triple was already well established as the “most exciting play in baseball” going into game three of the National League Championship Series. Scratch that. The “most exciting play in baseball” is now the Yasiel Puig Triple. Puig had struck out in seven of his 11 at bats when he came up in the fourth inning in the Dodgers 3-0 win, so as they say in the sports world, he was due. Upon contact, the youngster flipped his bat and went into his home run trot. The problem with that is that the ball wasn’t even close to a homer, hitting at the base of the right field wall. This is not the first time Puig had chosen to admire one his clouts that didn’t clear the fence. Just a thought: Dodgers fans waved white rally towels, and supporters of Dodgers pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu waved South Korean flags. Maybe Dodgers manager Don Mattingly can wave a green flag the minute Puig makes contact to remind him to go full throttle right from the starting line. Puig’s Great Adventure was only getting under way. Realizing his gaffe, he went into an Olympic sprinter’s gait, a blur as he dashed around second to third. After arriving at third, Puig stood on the base for the celebration, extending his arms to the sky. You wondered if he expected his teammates to run out on the field and start spraying champagne on him. On his next triple, will he stop at first and second and take a bow before proceeding to third? Puig’s showboating antics leave him an easy target for criticism, but you have to ask yourself: What was the most exciting moment of game three? Puig’s at bats, even his strikeouts, are just a little more entertaining than those of the traditionalists. Any ball hit to right field when he’s out there is worth monitoring for great, bad or ugly. And don’t forget that rifle arm. My only suggestion for Puig is that he borrow Hanley Ramirez’s flak jacket for tonight’s game because the Cardinals might be arriving at Dodger Stadium in a bad mood.

GAME 3 NOTES;

* As if Puig’s three-bagger swagger wasn’t enough, Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez added his own goofy gyrations after arriving at second base with an RBI double. Gonzalez made gestures that were described by writers as “some hand jive” that “resembled an explosion.” Whatever the meaning of the celebratory display, Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright wasn’t pleased. “I saw Adrian doing some Mickey Mouse stuff at second,” Wainwright said. Gonzalez said that was exactly the point, noting that in Southern California, “Mickey Mouse stuff goes. Mickey Mouse is only an hour away.”

* The Cardinals are batting .134, they’ve scored four runs, they’ve gone 13 innings without a run. They let Carl Crawford score from second when they got nonchalant with the relay throw after a bloop hit to center. Right fielder Carlos Beltran let Puig’s shot ricochet by him, turning a double into a triple. Center fielder John Jay and Beltran turned into spectators while converging on a drive to right center, letting the ball fall between them with neither making an effort to make the catch. Daniel Descalso wandered too far off second on a very catchable liner to left, and was doubled off on Crawford’s throw. Boy, it’s no wonder why the Cardinals are down 3-0 and on the verge of elimination. Oh, wait, the Cardinals are actually leading two games to one. But be warned St. Louis, the most trusted man in baseball, Vin Scully, said after the final lout, “The Dodgers are alive and well.”

* One more great stat on the Cardinals, courtesy of Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He wrote that beginning with game 5 against the Giants last year, the Cardinals are hitting .157 with four runs in their last six NLCS games.

* Hanley Ramirez can hit, but his national reputation entering this post season was as a player who got lackadaisical at times and did some weird “goggles” gesture when he did something good. However, Ramirez’s willingness to play with a broken rib while wearing a flak jacket, his contributions to the win and his straightforward, gracious post-game interview might help shift the focus to fact that he can play the game.

* A treat of the TBS coverage has been the pre- and post-game shows hosted by Keith Olbermann. Many have tried, but few have Olbermann’s wit and style in describing the highlights and keeping the conversation of his analysts moving along. Too bad the show can’t be carried over for the World Series — and if the Dodgers make it, they could do the show from Disneyland.

The pitiful offense in the first two games of the NLCS almost makes you yearn for the good old days when the ball and the players were juiced. If a fan tosses a beach ball near home plate at Dodger Stadium on Monday, my guess is that the batter would swing at it and miss. Home runs are so 2012. This is a series for chicks who dig the sacrifice fly. You can thrill some of the baseball fans with overpowering pitching some of the time, but you can’t thrill all of the fans with just overpowering pitching all of the time. In 1858, all-star teams from ball clubs in Brooklyn and New York met in the first ever paid admission baseball games. The three-game series drew 15,000 to a baseball field carved out of the middle of a Long Island race track. The final scores of the games were New York 22-18, Brooklyn 29-8 and New York 29-18. Fans liked these scores, the game caught on and until these first two games of the NLCS, it seemed to be a very exciting sport. Of course, in those Long island games, the pitchers threw underhand and the idea was to let the batters put the ball in play, I say, let’s try that on Monday night. I want 10-9, I want bases-loaded triples, I want to see a ball actually go over the fence in fair territory. And I’m not going to get carried away, having to use up all my adjectives trying to tell the world that the Cy Young Award should now be named the Michael Wacha award. The kid looks good, he’s a nice story, but he’s still more than 500 wins behind Mr. Young.

GAME 2 NOTES:

* The Cardinals are in the driver’s seat with a 2-0 series lead after their 1-0 win, but they’re lucky if their small number of base runners could find home plate with a GPS. St. Louis has four runs in two games. They had two hits Saturday. They didn’t really beat Dodger aces Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, they just survived them. While 2-0 seems formidable, so did 3-1 last post season. The Cardinals then collapsed as the Giants rolled to wins of 5-0, 6-1 and 9-0. Sooner or later, you’ve got to hit. The Cardinals are supposed to be a sound fundamental team — that’s one of the reasons they got this far. But right now, they look like a spring training “B” squad. Center fielder John Jay converted a routine single into a triple by taking a bad angle to the ball; Jay failed to sacrifice a runner when Greinke pounced on his poorly positioned bunt; second baseman David Carpenter’s ill-advised throw to second in game two put the Dodgers on second and third and none out; the Cardinals got a leadoff triple from Carpenter in game two but couldn’t bring him home. Not even Dr. October, aka Carlos Beltran, could do the job. And one more time with Jay: He became the “offensive” hero Saturday with a sacrifice fly after failing on a squeeze bunt attempt with David Freese at third. Jay then had the good fortune to lift a rather short fly ball to left field instead of right field. Freese scored easily as Carl Crawford delivered an off-speed and off-line throw in the vicinity of home plate. Freese would probably not have even tried to score if the ball was hit to right, where you try to advance at your risk by testing the rocket arm of Yasiel Puig.

* Speaking of Puig, I keep thinking about how tough 10 at bats (he’s 0 for 10) can be for a rookie in a big post-season series. A young player can shine in the regular season, but then things can turn dark when the stakes get high as good pitchers bear down and each at bat becomes a pressure situation. Willie Mays faced that reality in the epic 1951 three-game playoff against the Dodgers. Mays hit 20 homers and drove in 68 runs in 121 games after he was called up, helping spark the Giants with his bat, speed and defense. But Mays went just 1 for 10 in the playoff, with no RBIs or extra base hits. This is not to suggest that Puig is or ever will be Willie Mays, but his potential to change the game is just one swing away. Hitting coach Mark McGwire will earn his money if he can explain to Puig during the Sunday off day that the game plan is to work him soft low and outside and then bust him with heat over the inside of the plate. Puig’s mission should be just line-drive type contact — trying to hit three-run homers with nobody on base is not a championship formula.

* The series MVP as of now should go to Cardinals first-game starter Joe Kelly, who drilled Dodger star Hanley Ramirez in the ribs with a fastball. Ramirez entered the NLCS red hot after tomahawking the Braves with an 8 for 16 performance. In games where runs are rare, the loss of Ramirez from that one pitch might be the single biggest moment of the series. This raises the question: Should the Dodgers have retaliated? No one is saying Kelly intended to drill Ramirez, but old school baseball might have drawn a response anyway. Intentional or not, you’ve go to protect your star.

* Game 3 is the biggest game the Dodgers have played in quite a while. Perhaps they should channel their Dodger past for inspiration to break out of their 19-inning scoreless streak. I would direct them to a similar situation in 1962. The Dodgers had Maury Wills, Jim Gilliam, Willie and Tommy Davis, Frank Howard, John Roseboro and others, but they just could not score when it counted. It was game two of the three-game playoff against the Giants, and through five innings the Dodgers trailed 5-0. They had now gone 35 consecutive innings without scoring a run. Then they scored seven times in the sixth to take a 7-5 lead. The Giants tied it, but the Dodgers won it in the ninth. How did the winning run score? You guessed it — a sacrifice fly..

A series that had classic written all over it lived up to the billing in game one as the Cardinals took the marathon contest over the Dodgers 3-2 in 13 innings. The two storied clubs took different routes to the post-season. The Cardinals built their roster from within, with 18 of their 25 players acquired through the draft or signed as amateur free agents. The Dodgers wrote big checks. That contrast, coupled with the more than 100 years of competition between the franchises, heightened the anticipation for this best-of-seven showdown. In fact, Cardinals vs. Dodgers is now one of the best matchups in baseball. Yet, the teams are limited to meeting just seven times per season because of interleague play. Can’t wait to see the Cardinals-Dodgers battling on the field next year? You’ll have to show some patience, since the teams don’t play each other until June 26. By that time the Dodgers, for example, will have played 11 games against AL squads (Tigers, Twins, White Sox, Royals).

The addition of a wild-card team makes even more of a mockery of the interleague schedule, since the teams who are directly competing for those post-season berths go head to head with their non-division foes very few times. In the epic Cardinals-Dodgers season of 1942, the clubs met 22 times. The Cardinals overcame a 10-1/2 game Dodgers lead in mid-August by winning 43 of their last 51 games to win the flag. The Cardinals finished 106-48, the Dodgers 104-50. Head-to-head play was key, as the Cardinals took their series from the Dodgers 13 to 9. Would have been a shame if the clubs met just seven times that season, while filling out their schedules against the likes of the AL’s Washington Senators, Philadelphia Athletics or Cleveland Indians, all of whom were dreadful that year.

GAME ONE NOTES:

* I know that Carlos Beltran didn’t fit in for some reason with the Giants when they traded for him in the stretch drive of 2011. He was injured, though some questioned whether he should play through it. He did not deliver the big hits. Fans were booing. I know all that, but let’s review Beltran’s NLCS opener: hits two-run double, throws out runner at plate in 10th and wins game with RBI single in the 13th. I know that Beltran seemed as if he didn’t want to stay a Giant, but suppose S.F.’s lineup had Hunter Pence in left and Beltran in right. Beltran is hitting .345 with 16 homers and 34 RBIs in his post-season career. Calling him Mr. October is not showing enough respect. He’s got an advanced degree in the subject. From now on, he should be addressed as Dr. October.

* During his post-game interview with TBS, no one thankfully shoved a shaving-cream pie into Beltran’s face. Somehow, the dignified way Beltran carries himself just makes him the type who teammates would not target in this lame baseball ritual.

* More Giants: Juan Uribe drives in both Dodgers runs; The Beard pitches a scoreless, though eventful inning. If the Dodgers win the World Series, Wilson would have three championship rings in four years, one more than his old Giants teammates. Ouch! Dodgers might start mapping out how Wilson will be given his ring, since that part could get ugly. Ask The Baer about that one.

* Analysts debated whether Don Mattingly should have removed slugger Adrian Gonzalez for a pinch-runner in the eighth with the score tied. There is no gray area here. This game had the feel of one that was going into overtime. Cardinals relievers should text a thank you to the skipper for removing his game-changing threat from the contest. That was a blunder by an inexperienced manager, and could stick in the minds of Dodgers brass when it considers Mattingly’s future at the helm.

* Yasiel Puig was swinging wildly in his 0-for-6 post-season debut, but it’s hard to believe he won’t impact this series with his bat before it is over.

* The Cardinals Yadier Molina must have missed all that post-Buster Posey collision discussion about how catchers should avoid bone-jarring hits. Molina, an obvious student of the Mike Sciosia School of Plate Blocking, made the old Dodgers catcher proud by giving absolutely no lane to Mark Ellis as he tried to score from third on the fly ball to Beltran. Molina never really tagged Ellis out, but the body-to-body smashup was good enough for the ump to signal the runner out. Good call.

* Kudos to the TBS post-game show for using Vin Scully’s radio descriptions for two key Dodgers highlights. I was standing up when I first heard it, but then I pulled up a chair and replayed it. Even better the second time.