PASADENA — When the National League Cy Young Award ballots — which were due yesterday — are tabulated, St. Louis Cardinals budding ace Adam Wainwright may win his first, cementing his arrival as one of the game’s elite starting starting pitchers.

LA’s Clayton Kershaw won’t be far behind.

If this National League Division Series is a stage for young players to burst onto the October scene — Matt Kemp? Skip Schumaker? anyone? — no two figure to steal the spotlight as much as the two young starters going this afternoon in Game 2. Wainwright, 28, led the National League in wins (19) and innings pitched, and he was fourth in ERA (2.63). Kershaw, 21, was right behind Wainwright, fifth in the NL with a 2.79 ERA, and it’s likely the lefty will be in the mix for those same league-leads in the near future — and today won’t be the first duel between these two pitchers.

That’s where this morning’s 10@10 begins …

1. Kershaw made his major-league debut against the Cardinals on May 25, 2008, and that day he struck out seven, held the Cardinals two runs on five hits and left the game after six superb innings. He got a no decision, but he left an impression. Once Kershaw got through a rocky first inning in his debut, he settled in. “But after that he starts mixing in his changeup and getting some quick outs,” hitting coach Hal McRae said to The Post-Dispatch that evening. “I was impressed.” Since that day, Kershaw in ninth in the NL in ERA with a 3.36 and his 13-13 record has not reflected his performance. Wainwright, since Kershaw’s debut, is third in the NL — behind Tim Lincecum and Johan Santana — with a 2.78 ERA. He’s also 26-9. Right there are four names that are bound to appear on Cy Young ballots in the future. Wainwright, according to Dodgers manager Joe Torre, already has that look of another Cy Young winner …

“This guy coming at us (today), you know, Wainwright, I don’t want to say he’s a carbon copy of Carp,” said Torre, using Chris Carpenter’s nickname. “I think he’s a carbon copy in the way he competes and the numbers that both of them have put up this year. That’s their strength. … We certainly beat a great pitcher, not a good pitcher, a great pitcher (Wednesday), and we know we have a lot of work to do against Wainwright.”

2. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, we saw more than the longest game in NLDS history last night (3 hours, 54 minutes), we saw history that spans the existence of the postseason. Since 1903, the year of the first World Series, no nine-inning playoff game — not one of the 1,105 nine-inning games played — has featured as many runners left on base as the Cardinals and Dodgers did last night. The two teams combined for 30 runners left on base (LA 16 and Cardinals 14), and there was only one half inning in the entire game that passed without a runner being stranded.

3. More about last night’s game can be found in the 10@10 spinoff that we’ll be doing during the postseason on morning’s following games — About Last Night. The first edition can be found here.

4. But before we let go entirely of Game 1, it has inspired today’s poll:

 Loading …

5. Several Cardinals could leave this series with some franchise records for the postseason, starting with Wainwright — who will throw his first playoff pitch tonight since he clinched the 2006 World Series title with a strike-three slider to Detroit third baseman Brandon Inge. Wainwright already has the most career scoreless innings of any Cardinals pitcher in the postseason. His consecutive-inning run starts today at 9 2/3 innings. … Some others: Albert Pujols is tied with Jim Edmonds with 13 postseason homers. Pujols already leads in hits (61), runs (39), walks (33) and, yes, intentional walks (nine). Er, make that 11. And watch that number skyrocket this series …

6. Dodgers reliever Jeff Weaver got the victory for freeing LA out of a bases loaded jam in the fourth inning Wednesday. Not that anyone is counting, but that means that Weaver has one victory in each of the last four playoff series the Cardinals have played. This is just the first one against the Cardinals.

7. HIT THE LINKS: USA Today’s Bob Nightengale has an excellent story on the friendship and one-two punch of Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter, the Cardinals’ tandem aces and really still the key to their postseason aspirations. … Los Angeles Times Page 2 columnist T. J. Simers claims that the Dodgers’ “brand of baseball” surprised the Cardinals. … His colleague, Bill Plaschke, quotes the Black Eyed Peas (because that is what the Dodger Stadium speaker system throbs with almost every inning) to describe the reviving of the Dodgers offense: Boom, Boom, Pow. (What, you were expecting “Let’s Get it Started”? Don’t phunk with my links.) … Jeff Weaver talks with MLB.com about his unlikely victory in Game 1. Sort of familiar. … Bill Madden, the New York Daily News baseball columnist who is being considered for Hall of Fame induction this winter, picks his winners for the postseason awards and he gives the biggest NL hardware to two Cardinals. … Boston Globe’s Bob Ryan swoops by the NL series before the Red Sox open south of here to chime in on Manny Ramirez and the passing fad that is Mannywood.

8. A player-by-player look at how Wainwright fares against the Dodger lineup he’s likely to see this afternoon at Dodger Stadium:

Rafael Furcal, SS — 7-for-16, 0 K … .438/.438/.563

Matt Kemp, CF — 2-for-8, 0 K … .250/.333/.250

Andre Ethier, RF — 5-for-16, 3 K, HR … .313/.353/.625

Manny Ramirez, LF — 0-for-5, 3 K … .000/.286/.000

James Loney, 1B — 4-for-14, 2 K, HR … .286/.286/.643

Casey Blake, 3B — 1-for-7, 1 K, HR … .143/.143/.571

Ronnie Belliard, 2B — 4-for-10, 1 K, HR … .400/.400/.700

Russell Martin, C — 7-for-14, 0 K … .500/.563/.643

9. Veteran pitchers Trever Miller and John Smoltz talked last night during the game about the strike zone of home-plate umpire Dana DeMuth. It was conservative, but at least it was constant. Miller, for example, winced when he didn’t get a call on a strike to Jim Thome. Yet, he couldn’t bark, because the strike zone had been the same way all evening. And this was no regular-season strike zone. Said Miller: “If you were to check with the QuesTec system, I bet he would have scored a 98 percent. He had eyes like a hawk tonight. He was right there on every pitch, and we’ve got to be aware that this is how the series is going to go. You may get those pitches in April, maybe in August, but you’re not going to get them here. … That’s why the game took almost four hours. Pitches you may get earlier in the year, you don’t get now.”

10. When the Cardinals hit the open market, trolling for a lefthanded specialist, pitching coach Dave Duncan said the team needed a reliever they could turn to when one of the league’s best lefthanded hitters had a chance to change a game. He meant the Ryan Howard-, Prince Fielder-, Adam Dunn-type hitters. That’s only because Jim Thome was in the other league. In one of the more odd moves last night, the Dodgers didn’t go to Thome in the fifth inning when there were two runners on base and Carpenter was clearly struggling. Instead, Juan Pierre bunted and LA turned the inning into an assembly line for one run. Small ball be praised. In the sixth, with the bases loaded, the call was clear: Thome for the win, Bert. That meant the Cardinals could bring in the lefty they hired (and re-hired) for this job. Miller struck out Thome with the bases loaded. That improved Miller’s track record against the lefthanded-hitting slugger to:

2-for-6, 1 2B, 1 BB and 4 K

When Miller struck out Thome last night, he exulted in the whiff, pumping his first briefly — a rare blip of emotion from the usually country-cool lefty.

“I did the moment. Let it out,” Miller said. “I was excitied to get out of that inning, give us a chance to still win the game. If he hits a double there, it gets out of hand. It’s a give and take for both veterans. He didn’t want to swing, but I got him swinging. I didn’t get a call, but I got him to swing at a ball four, and that was a strike three. Should be interesting (today). That’s when the true veteran comes out. The next day’s at-bat.”

-30-