SAN FRANCISCO -- Chris Carpenter walked off the mound, and the fans cheered him once again.

Giants fans, that is.

The orange towel-twirling crowd at AT&T Park saw San Francisco send the St. Louis star to an early exit in a 6-1 win Sunday night that forced the National League Championship Series to a decisive Game 7.

"The bottom line is," Carpenter said, "I'm not giving my team a chance to win."

The Cardinals' longtime postseason ace came back from a complicated operation that removed a rib and two neck muscles just to get on the mound again this October for the reigning World Series champions. All of that success, though, has evaporated in his last two starts in San Francisco.

Carpenter allowed five runs in four shaky innings -- identical to his loss earlier in Game 2. Not what the Cardinals had come to expect from him in the postseason, a resume that includes a Game 7 win in last year's World Series.

And so the wild-card Cardinals were pushed to the brink of elimination once more. They're plenty familiar with that situation.

Carpenter and St. Louis won the decisive Game 5 of the division series at Philadelphia last season, then the Cardinals overcame a 3-2 deficit in the World Series to beat Texas. They won the winner-take-all wild-card game at Atlanta this month and rallied in the ninth at Washington in Game 5 of the division series.

Now they must do it again.

Giants ace Matt Cain will take the mound for Game 7 in San Francisco on Monday night opposite Kyle Lohse in a rematch of a rain-delayed Game 3, which the Cardinals won in St. Louis. There's also a rare rainy forecast for San Francisco for the clincher.

"We've been in this spot before," second baseman Daniel Descalso said. "We're not going to be intimidated by it."

If the Cardinals hope to return to the World Series, they'll need to find some stronger pitching and defense -- and fast.

Not to mention a little offense, too.

Allen Craig's two-out single in the sixth drove home Carlos Beltran for the Cardinals' only run against Ryan Vogelsong, who struck out a career-high nine in seven innings of four-hit ball. St. Louis had gone 15 innings without scoring after lefty Barry Zito and Co. held it scoreless in Game 5.