ST. LOUIS -- Though their bullpen faltered at the end of Game 1, the Braves benefited from effective starts in the first two games of the National League Division Series against the Cardinals.

With the best-of-five series tied at 1, Atlanta will now give the ball to NL Cy Young Award candidate Mike Soroka, who will oppose former Braves top prospect Adam Wainwright in Game 3 on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium.

Here are three keys for the Braves as they seek to secure at least a split, if not a ticket to the NL Championship Series, in St. Louis.

1) Soroka needs to survive the first inning.

The first inning has occasionally been trouble for Soroka, to the extent that the lights-out rookie has found trouble at any point this season. 

Opponents have hit .302 with a .690 OPS against him in the first inning. His ERA this season, by inning: 4.66, 1.86, 0.96, 2.25, 4.61, 0.87, 3.38.

The Cardinals' lineup presents a challenge right out of the gate with Dexter Fowler, Tommy Edman and Paul Goldschmidt atop the order, plus Marcell Ozuna and Yadier Molina waiting in the wings if anyone gets on base. As a team, St. Louis hit more home runs in the first (29) than any other inning this season.

“They're strong. Everybody knows that. They've got some guys that have done some damage for a lot of years,” Soroka said on Saturday. “Talking to Dallas [Keuchel] and Mike [Foltynewicz] about how they navigated the lineup and picking your spots to which battles you want to get into, and where you don't want to get hurt, little things like that that you've really got to pay attention to with this lineup.”

• Braves postseason gear

If Soroka can silence the Cards’ bats in the first inning, along with their raucous home crowd, he should set the tone for another dominant start on the road.

2) Wainwright’s curveball is coming, so get ready to hit it.

The veteran right-hander has put together more than his fair share of “Vintage Waino” starts this season, and much of his success has been driven by his signature curveball.

“We've got to go up there with good approaches. He's a smart pitcher,” Braves outfielder Nick Markakis said. “He's been around a long time. We’ve just got to stay within ourselves and do whatever we've been doing all year.”

This season, Wainwright threw his curveball 36.8 percent of the time -- more often than he used any other individual pitch in his arsenal. Opponents hit just .240 with a .360 slugging percentage against his curveball compared to .329/.529 against his sinker, .311/.492 against his cutter, .237/.423 against his four-seamer and .429/.429 against his changeup.

Who on the Braves' roster might be best equipped to do damage against Wainwright’s curveball? Adam Duvall went 4-for-9 against right-handers’ curveballs this season, the best average among active Atlanta hitters followed by Freddie Freeman (16-for-44), Ronald Acuña Jr. (20-for-57) and Markakis (9-for-26).

As a team, Atlanta posted the NL’s highest batting average (.255) and slugging percentage (.426) against right-handed pitchers’ curveballs this season, according to Statcast.

3) Get the ball to the back-end relievers you can trust.

“Trust” might be a relative term after closer Mark Melancon's outing in the Braves’ Game 1 loss at SunTrust Park, but there is clearly an established order taking shape in Atlanta’s bullpen during this series. If manager Brian Snitker can summon hard-throwing lefty Max Fried with a lead, the Braves are in good shape.

Soroka didn’t have any trouble getting them to the seventh this season, completing six innings in 20 of his 29 starts. If Soroka can record the first 18 outs, Snitker can try to cobble together nine more with Fried, right-hander Shane Greene and Melancon taking the mound in some order.

“We have [Fried], Melancon, Shane Greene's done that also,” Snitker said. “We have some options there depending on where the lineup is at and how we get to individual phases of it.”

The risk there, of course, is that the Cardinals might get more comfortable against those three the more they pitch -- and they already saw Fried and Melancon in the first two games of the series. 

Ideally, Atlanta’s lineup will break open a big enough lead against Wainwright and the Cardinals bullpen so Snitker won’t have to use his high-leverage trio again. But if the Braves must go to their bullpen to protect a narrow lead, they’d like to see those three -- in whatever sequence they match up best -- running in from left field.