WORLD SERIES Giants 1st in NL to sweep since ’90
DETROIT — San Francisco’s sweep of the Detroit Tigers, completed Sunday night with a 4-3, 10-inning victory, made the Giants the first National League team to sweep a World Series since the 1990 Cincinnati Reds.
And no NL team had won twice in a three-year span since the Big Red Machine in 1975-1976.
“I’m numb, really, the fact that we’ve won two World Series in the last three years,” Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said. “This will sink in, but right now, I’m kind of speechless on that.”
They are just the fifth NL team to accomplish the feat since the 1907-1908 Chicago Cubs, joining the 1921-1922 New York Giants, the St. Louis Cardinals of 1944 and 1946, the Los Angeles Dodgers of 1963 and 1965, and the Reds.
And these Giants did it with small ball, becoming only the fifth big league team — and the first since the 1982 Cardinals — to win the title after finishing dead last in home runs during the regular season.
Marco Scutaro hit a goahead single with two outs in the 10th inning against Phil Coke to set up the sweep.
On a night of biting cold, stiff breezes and some rain, the Giants sealed the title when Sergio Romo got Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera to look at strike three for the final out.
Giants catcher Buster Posey, the NL batting champion and only player in the starting lineup when San Francisco won the 2010 clincher at Texas, celebrated with his teammates in the center of the Comerica Park diamond. In the clubhouse, they hoisted the trophy, passed it around and shouted the name of each player who held it.
“World Series champions!” hollered outfielder Hunter Pence, who started the pregame seed-tossing ritual.
Pablo Sandoval, nicknamed Kung Fu Panda, was benched for most of the 2010 Series and then went 8 for 16 this year, including a three-home run performance in Game 1, to win MVP honors.
“I was ready for the moment,” he said. “I was waiting for the opportunity to be in the playoffs again.”
Cabrera delivered the first big hit for Detroit, interrupting San Francisco’s run of dominant pitching with a two-run, wind-blown home run over the right-field wall in the third.
Posey put the Giants ahead 3-2 with a two-run home run in the sixth and Delmon Young hit a tying home run in the bottom half.
San Francisco then won a battle of bullpens.
Ryan Theriot led off the 10th with a single against Coke, moved up on Brandon Crawford’s sacrifice and scored on a shallow single by Scutaro, the MVP of the NL Championship Series. Center fielder Austin Jackson made a throw home, to no avail.
“We were very adamant that we have to step on their throats,” Giants pitcher Barry Zito said. “We saw what they did to New York.”
Santiago Casilla got one out in the ninth for the victory. Romo struck out the side in the bottom of the 10th for his third save of the Series.
The Giants finished the month with seven consecutive victories and their seventh Series championship. They handed the Tigers their seventh consecutive World Series loss dating to 2006.
“Obviously, there was no doubt about it,” Tigers Manager Jim Leyland said. “It was freaky. I would have never guessed we would have swept the [New York] Yankees and I would have never guessed the Giants would have swept us.”
The Giants had a combined 1.42 ERA, outscored the Tigers 16-6 and held them to a .159 batting average — thirdlowest in Series history ahead of only the 1966 Baltimore Orioles (.146) and 1966 Dodgers (.142).
“This was the worst day of my career,” Tigers catcher Alex Avila said. “They played great, and we didn’t. It’s that simple.”
The NL has won three in a row for the first time in 30 years. San Francisco won six elimination games en route to the title.
Once again, San Francisco took an early lead. Pence hit a one-hop drive over the center-field fence for a double and Brandon Belt tripled off the right-field wall on the next pitch for a 1-0 lead in the second.
The next inning, Cabrera gave the Tigers a reason to think this night might get them back on track to end a title drought dating to 1984.
With two outs and a runner on first, Cabrera lofted an opposite-field fly to right — off the bat, it looked like a routine out shy of the warning track. But with winds gusting over 25 mph, the ball kept carrying, Pence kept drifting toward the wall and the crowd kept getting louder. Just like that, it was gone. Cabrera’s home run gave Detroit its first lead of the Series, ended its 20-inning scoreless streak. Trailing for the first time since Game 4 of the NCS, Posey and the Giants put a dent in Detroit’s optimism. Scutaro led off the sixth with a single and clapped all the way around the bases when Posey sent a shot that sailed just inside the left-field foul pole for a 3-2 lead.
Young, the ALCS MVP against the Yankees, made it 33 with another opposite-field home run to right, this one a no-doubt drive.
But other Tigers disappointed. Prince Fielder, signed to a $214 million deal last winter, finished 1 for 14 (.071) against the Giants without an RBI. Cabrera, the first Triple Crown winner in 45 years, was 3 for 13 (.231) with three RBI.
“You just don’t get to write your own script,” Fielder said.
San Francisco did. The Giants overcame a 2-0 deficit against Cincinnati in the best-of-5 division series by winning three consecutive on the road. They overcame a 3-1 hole against defending champion St. Louis in the league championship. And then they became the first champion that hit the fewest home runs in the majors since St. Louis in 1982.