(Sports Network) - For the second straight year the St. Louis Cardinals and San Diego Padres square off in the National League Division Series with Game 1 of the best-of-five series slated for this afternoon at Petco Park.

St. Louis ace and 2006 NL CY Young Award candidate Chris Carpenter will lead his club in Game 1. Carpenter, who won the Cy Young Award last season, lost his last two starts of the regular season following an eight-game unbeaten streak (5-0).

Carpenter finished 2-0 with a 2.14 ERA over 21 innings in three playoff starts last year and is making his second career appearance in the postseason. The right-hander led the team in wins with a 15-8 record over 32 starts with a team-high 3.09 ERA through a team-best 221 2/3 innings.

San Diego, meanwhile, will rely on the right arm of Jake Peavy in the series opener. Peavy was an early Cy Young Award prospect and led the team with 202 1/3 innings pitched. He went 11-14 with a 4.09 earned run average, while winning his last two starts of the regular season and three straight decisions.

The right-handed Peavy made his playoff debut last season and lost his only start, allowing eight runs and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings.

The Padres captured home-field advantage for this series after winning their fifth National League West title in franchise history with Sunday's 7-6 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. San Diego was tied with Los Angeles but owned the head-to-head tiebreaker even though the Dodgers defeated San Francisco.

San Diego won back-to-back titles for the first time in its 38-year history thanks in large part from winning 13 of 18 games against the division-rival Dodgers this season.

Bruce Bochy's club is in the playoffs for the second straight season, the fourth time over the past 11 years and fifth time ever. The Padres, who went 82-80 and won the West in 2004, were swept in last season's NLDS by St. Louis.

The Padres were down 2-0 when they headed home for Game 3 and St. Louis busted out the brooms with a 7-4 victory. It's a different year for San Diego, which finished 12th in the National League in team batting average, 14th in runs scored and 12th in home runs this season, and the club hopes it can repeat the success of 1998, when they last made it to the World Series.

Just like San Diego, the Cardinals needed to win the NL Central division on the final day of the regular season. Despite a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, the Cardinals clinched their third straight division championship thanks to Houston's loss in Atlanta.

St. Louis just barely made the playoffs for the third straight season and the seventh time in 11 years. It lost home-field advantage and nine of the 12 games of the regular season to fend off the creeping Houston Astros.

First baseman Albert Pujols is the monster of the St. Louis offense and led the club in average (.331), RBI (137), runs scored (119) and home runs (49). Pujols would have hit many more homers, but was hampered for some time with an oblique injury.

The 2005 NL MVP is again a candidate to win the award this year and finished the regular season on a torrid pace, with three homers and seven runs batted in over the last five games. He will surely provide some highlight-reel hits during the playoffs.

In 40 games against San Diego, including playoffs, Pujols is batting .404 with 14 homers and 44 RBI. He went 5-for-9 in the NLDS last season and is batting .336 with 10 homers and 29 RBIs in 37 playoff games.

San Diego won four of its six matchups with the Cardinals this season.