Giants blow tight game wide open with seven runs in penultimate inning
You want October crazy? How about the Giants teaching the Rangers -- those big, bad Yankee-killers -- another lesson in the World Series. That's two smackdowns in two nights, and from here the math becomes terribly simple for the National League champs.
Following their 9-0 win in Game 2, the Giants are in a position to close out the World Series this weekend with an even more impossible scenario. If they beat Colby Lewis in Game 3, it would almost certainly force Cliff Lee to come back on three days' rest for the first time in his career for Game 4.
It's either that or risk being swept by the upstart Giants, who had every crazy little thing go their way Thursday night including Ian Kinsler's blast to centre field in the fifth inning that missed being a home run by the smallest possible denomination.
Inches? Maybe even less. A sure-thing home run was kept to a double, and the Rangers ended up stranding Kinsler. That was Omen No. 1. Two innings later Omen No. 2 was hovering in the Rangers' faces in the form of a blister on C.J. Wilson's left middle finger.
Wilson, who had been locked in a pitchers' duel for the ages with Matt Cain, was forced to leave the game on the wrong side of a 1-0 score. The Giants weren't having much luck with Wilson, but quickly made it 2-0 on Juan Uribe's RBI single off Darren Oliver and then went berserk in the eighth inning, adding seven runs against three Rangers' relievers.
And to think, the Rangers undoubtedly went into Game 2 with a cold, clear understanding of the task in front of them: Wilson would have to out-pitch Cain in the game of his life. To a man, the Rangers had faith in the lefthander even if their No. 1 lefty, Lee, was nuked out of existence in Game 1. Still, Wilson is nothing if not unflappable, which is why Michael Young said: "We have complete confidence in C.J. He's done this before, he knows how to pitch in big games."
Surviving those do-or-die moments usually comes down to inches, maybe even less than that. To the surprise of no one Thursday night, Wilson and Cain were locked in the kind of duel that had heartbreak written all over it. Someone was going to live with the regret of one bad pitch, one bloop hit or a blast to centre that missed clearing the wall by, you guessed it, inches.
That was the margin between Kinsler hitting a home run over the centre field wall in the fifth inning and settling for a double. It would probably be an exaggeration to say the ball missed by a whisper. It was even less than that. The ball caught a fraction of the wall, enough to keep it in the park, and wouldn't you know, Kinsler had to settle for a double.
Would that be an omen for the rest of the inning? The game, even? Any credible Met historian would tell you home runs that somehow fail to complete their mission can come back to haunt a team in a critical moment.
Think back to Sept. 20, 1973 against the Pirates, when, with Richie Zisk on first in the top of the 13th inning, Dave Augustine hit a ball off the top of the left field wall at Shea, bouncing into Cleon Jones' glove on the fly.
From there, Jones fired to Wayne Garret who turned and delivered a strike to Ron Hodges in time to nail Zisk at the plate. The Mets then won the game in the bottom of the 13th, creeping to within a half-game of the first-place Pirates. The Mets ended up taking the East on the last day of the regular season; among the millions of reasons why, despite their .508 winning percentage, was the play at the wall.
The Giants had to believe the fates were being just as kind to them because the Rangers never did recover from the shock of leaving Kinsler in scoring position. David Murphy lined out to short, Matt Treanor bounced to short and after No. 8 hitter Mitch Moreland was intentionally walked, Wilson grounded out to first to end the inning.
The Rangers trudged back onto the field staring at the growing number of zeros on the scoreboard. Cain was beating them with fastballs up and in, many of them clocked 93-m. p.h., pairing them with sliders down and away. With a short, compact, uncomplicated delivery, the ball seemed to explode on the Rangers' hitters; no one seemed comfortable, and the ones that did even temporarily, like Kinsler, ran into bad luck.
It was the work of inches, on both sides of the battle. A half inning later Wilson, who had been painting the corners all night like Cain, made his first mistake. It was an 0-1 fastball that Wilson was trying to power in on Edgar Renteria's hands. He missed by just enough to pay the price: Renteria crushed a home run over the left field wall -- and this time it wasn't even close. No need to sweat the inches, not when the ball landed 10 rows into the stands.
That's all the Giants were going to need. It seemed like everything was going their way, rolling along a path of perfect karma that began in Game 1. After all, you smoke one Cliff Lee, knock him out in the fifth inning and ruin his previously perfect 7-0 record in the post-season and everything else becomes not just possible, but even likely.
So when the Giants stretched their lead to 2-0 in the seventh inning on Uribe's RBI single in the seventh inning, the crowd at AT&T Park was thinking huge thoughts. A commanding Series lead going to Texas and a chance to maybe finish off the big, bad Yankee-killers without even having to face Lee a second time. Crazy, indeed.
Following their 9-0 win in Game 2, the Giants are in a position to close out the World Series this weekend with an even more impossible scenario. If they beat Colby Lewis in Game 3, it would almost certainly force Cliff Lee to come back on three days' rest for the first time in his career for Game 4.
It's either that or risk being swept by the upstart Giants, who had every crazy little thing go their way Thursday night including Ian Kinsler's blast to centre field in the fifth inning that missed being a home run by the smallest possible denomination.
Inches? Maybe even less. A sure-thing home run was kept to a double, and the Rangers ended up stranding Kinsler. That was Omen No. 1. Two innings later Omen No. 2 was hovering in the Rangers' faces in the form of a blister on C.J. Wilson's left middle finger.
Wilson, who had been locked in a pitchers' duel for the ages with Matt Cain, was forced to leave the game on the wrong side of a 1-0 score. The Giants weren't having much luck with Wilson, but quickly made it 2-0 on Juan Uribe's RBI single off Darren Oliver and then went berserk in the eighth inning, adding seven runs against three Rangers' relievers.
And to think, the Rangers undoubtedly went into Game 2 with a cold, clear understanding of the task in front of them: Wilson would have to out-pitch Cain in the game of his life. To a man, the Rangers had faith in the lefthander even if their No. 1 lefty, Lee, was nuked out of existence in Game 1. Still, Wilson is nothing if not unflappable, which is why Michael Young said: "We have complete confidence in C.J. He's done this before, he knows how to pitch in big games."
Surviving those do-or-die moments usually comes down to inches, maybe even less than that. To the surprise of no one Thursday night, Wilson and Cain were locked in the kind of duel that had heartbreak written all over it. Someone was going to live with the regret of one bad pitch, one bloop hit or a blast to centre that missed clearing the wall by, you guessed it, inches.
That was the margin between Kinsler hitting a home run over the centre field wall in the fifth inning and settling for a double. It would probably be an exaggeration to say the ball missed by a whisper. It was even less than that. The ball caught a fraction of the wall, enough to keep it in the park, and wouldn't you know, Kinsler had to settle for a double.
Would that be an omen for the rest of the inning? The game, even? Any credible Met historian would tell you home runs that somehow fail to complete their mission can come back to haunt a team in a critical moment.
Think back to Sept. 20, 1973 against the Pirates, when, with Richie Zisk on first in the top of the 13th inning, Dave Augustine hit a ball off the top of the left field wall at Shea, bouncing into Cleon Jones' glove on the fly.
From there, Jones fired to Wayne Garret who turned and delivered a strike to Ron Hodges in time to nail Zisk at the plate. The Mets then won the game in the bottom of the 13th, creeping to within a half-game of the first-place Pirates. The Mets ended up taking the East on the last day of the regular season; among the millions of reasons why, despite their .508 winning percentage, was the play at the wall.
The Giants had to believe the fates were being just as kind to them because the Rangers never did recover from the shock of leaving Kinsler in scoring position. David Murphy lined out to short, Matt Treanor bounced to short and after No. 8 hitter Mitch Moreland was intentionally walked, Wilson grounded out to first to end the inning.
The Rangers trudged back onto the field staring at the growing number of zeros on the scoreboard. Cain was beating them with fastballs up and in, many of them clocked 93-m. p.h., pairing them with sliders down and away. With a short, compact, uncomplicated delivery, the ball seemed to explode on the Rangers' hitters; no one seemed comfortable, and the ones that did even temporarily, like Kinsler, ran into bad luck.
It was the work of inches, on both sides of the battle. A half inning later Wilson, who had been painting the corners all night like Cain, made his first mistake. It was an 0-1 fastball that Wilson was trying to power in on Edgar Renteria's hands. He missed by just enough to pay the price: Renteria crushed a home run over the left field wall -- and this time it wasn't even close. No need to sweat the inches, not when the ball landed 10 rows into the stands.
That's all the Giants were going to need. It seemed like everything was going their way, rolling along a path of perfect karma that began in Game 1. After all, you smoke one Cliff Lee, knock him out in the fifth inning and ruin his previously perfect 7-0 record in the post-season and everything else becomes not just possible, but even likely.
So when the Giants stretched their lead to 2-0 in the seventh inning on Uribe's RBI single in the seventh inning, the crowd at AT&T Park was thinking huge thoughts. A commanding Series lead going to Texas and a chance to maybe finish off the big, bad Yankee-killers without even having to face Lee a second time. Crazy, indeed.
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