The San Fransisco Giants, on the strength of phenomenal hitting, have silenced the bats of explosive Detroit and, in the process, placed them one more victory from the World Series championship.
The Giants lead the series 3-0 after Saturday night’s 2-0 victory in Detroit, the second straight shut out of a team that features a potent lineup that swept the New York Yankees to get here. San Francisco seems to have found its rhythm at just the right time. After trailing in each of the previous series to get here — including 3-1 to last year’s champion St. Louis Cardinals — San Francisco has been stellar on baseball’s biggest stage.
And now the Giants’ second title in three years seems inevitable; No team has ever come back from an 0-3 series deficit.
Things are rolling so well for San Francisco that manager Bruce Bochy, who is usually reserved about praising his team, allowed: “I’ll say this: The club is playing well.”
And how. The Giants are the first team to throw consecutive Series shutouts in nearly 50 years. they have won a franchise-record sixth straight postseason game and never trailed in any in any of them.
“I think confidence is the biggest thing,” newly found ace reliever Tim Lincecum said.
Pitcher Ryan Vogelsong, a career journeyman whose path to the World Series took detours to Japan and Venezuela, improved to 3-0 with a 1.09 ERA in four starts this postseason. Simply, he was outstanding.
“I knew my stuff was pretty good,” Vogelsong said. “I was really pumped up to be out there.”
Vogelsong induced two early double plays, then faced his stiffest test in the fifth. The bases were loaded with one out when Vogelsong fanned rookie Quintin Berry. That brought up Miguel Cabrera, honored on the field before the game with an actual blue-and-gold crown for his Triple Crown accomplishments.With the fans chanting “M-V-P!” and likely sensing the whole Series was riding on this at-bat, Vogelsong seemed completely calm while chewing gum. He won the matchup, too, getting an easy popup that prompted Cabrera to slam his bat to the ground and elicited cheers in the San Francisco dugout
“I was just trying to make a pitch,” Vogelsong said. “And the way we’re playing defense, really just trying to get him to put a ball in play somewhere because I had a good feeling we were going to catch it if he did.”
Lincecum took over with two outs in the sixth, and the two-time Cy Young Award winner looked as if he had been coming out of the bullpen his whole life and shut down the Tigers. Closer Sergio Romo finished off the combined five-hitter with his second save of the Series.
“We’ve got Matt Cain tomorrow and he’s the guy to finish this,” said Gregor Blanco, who had an RBI triple.
