Dodgers express confidence before Game 3

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers did not hang their heads on the flight back from St. Louis on Saturday night after falling behind in the National League Championship Series, 2-0. Instead, manager Don Mattingly's veteran club shared experiences from past Octobers and plotted how to get back in the series.

"There was no big Bobby Knight speech," said Jerry Hairston Jr. "We just talked baseball. You've got to give credit to what they did. Hopefully, they'll give us credit the next five or six games. Hopefully, we'll be able to flip the script."

While the Dodgers lost both games in St. Louis, they collected five more hits than the Cardinals and stranded 17 runners on base. Los Angeles managed just two runs and hasn't scored in the last 19 innings, but the club understands it was one key hit away from changing the dynamics of the series.

"It's just a matter of getting a big hit, and we just didn't," said infielder Nick Punto, who won the World Series with the Cardinals in 2011.

Despite the scoring drought, Punto said the Dodgers aren't worried about their offense heading into Monday's Game 3 (5 p.m. PT, TBS).

"This is a very confident group inside this clubhouse, a very tight-knit group," Punto said. "Inside that clubhouse we're extremely loose. I feel like we're about to break out."

Mattingly isn't panicking, either, and trusts his club to turn things around.

"Our guys know where we're at," the manager said. "It's a matter of getting that key hit. We've talked about it. We could go into lots of things, but it always comes back to, can you get that key out and can you get the key hit?"