Pat Burrell gets 1-year deal with SF Giants

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

Pat Burrell, the local boy, is staying put.

Burrell and the Giants have reached agreement on a one-year contract, The Chronicle has confirmed. The value was not immediately available.

Burrell, 34, was a major contributor to the Giants' championship and their everyday left fielder for most of the season after the team signed him following his release by Tampa Bay.

He is expected to be a role player and his salary probably will reflect that.

Burrell hit 18 homers in 289 at-bats for the Giants, including a game-winning, two-run homer in the eighth inning against Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton on July 31 at AT&T Park.

Burrell grew up in the Santa Cruz area and attended Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose before going to the University of Miami.

New free agents: When general manager Brian Sabean comes to work Friday morning, he will see a list of new free agents to peruse as he seeks more shortstop help and more offense in general.

All teams must tender contracts to their unsigned players by 9 tonight PST. Many players who are eligible for salary arbitration will be "non-tendered" because their teams do not want to pay them at arbitration levels. Those players become free agents and could include Minnesota shortstop J.J. Hardy.

The Giants have eight players eligible for arbitration, far more than usual, and six are sure bets to get contract offers: pitchers Jonathan Sanchez, Ramon Ramirez, Javier Lopez and Santiago Casilla, plus outfielders Andres Torres and Cody Ross.

The two on the bubble are reliever Chris Ray and infielder Mike Fontenot. Ray was left off the postseason rosters and the Giants might need Fontenot's spot for a backup shortstop - Emmanuel Burriss or someone from the outside.

The Giants probably will try to cobble long-term deals with Sanchez, Torres, Lopez and Ross before arbitration hearings are scheduled for January.

Their one-year contract with Miguel Tejada is expected to be finalized today.

Giants fill infield hole with Tejada

Chris Haft
SFGiants.com
The Giants appeared poised to fill their shortstop vacancy by signing free agent Miguel Tejada, the 2002 American League Most Valuable Player and a six-time All-Star, to a one-year contract.

Giants officials declined comment, but an industry source familiar with the negotiations indicated a deal would be announced pending a physical.

Tejada told The Associated Press in the Dominican Republic that he had agreed to the deal worth $6.5 million.

"I'm very happy and satisfied to reach an agreement with the San Francisco Giants," Tejada told the AP in Spanish. "I take pride in having the opportunity to compete for that team."

Tejada, 36, primarily would replace Juan Uribe, whose three-year, $21 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers became official Tuesday. But Tejada would fit the Giants' needs in more than one realm. The 14-year-veteran played 97 games at third base last season with Baltimore and San Diego, a spot where he could be needed if Pablo Sandoval doesn't heed management's mandate to improve his physical conditioning.

A two-time Silver Slugger recipient with Baltimore in 2004-05, Tejada owns a .287 career batting average and a .462 lifetime slugging percentage. But he endured one of his least productive seasons in 2010, hitting .269 with 15 home runs and 71 RBIs. His .381 slugging percentage, which declined 74 points from 2009, was his lowest since his 1997 rookie season with Oakland.

But Major League scouts contacted by MLB.com remained mostly upbeat about Tejada's existing skills.

"He has outperformed what I thought he was going to be," one scout said. "He does a very good job of positioning himself. Offensively, you're not going to see quite the pop that you've seen in the past."

Said another, "He's not as strong as Uribe. His range is below average. But he has good hands and an accurate arm. He's still a dependable player."

Having earned $6 million last season, Tejada also is expected to be relatively affordable -- another significant factor, since the club payroll for the World Series-winning Giants almost surely will soar past $100 million.

The Giants had been rumored to be actively pursuing trade possibilities for shortstops, including Tampa Bay's Jason Bartlett and Minnesota's J.J. Hardy.

SF Giants sign Huff, as so-called misfit becomes cornerstone of title team

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

Aubrey Huff, one of the mercenaries and misfits who helped carry the Giants to the 2010 World Series championship, will have a much different role in 2011 as a highly paid cornerstone of a team that that will try to win another.

Last winter, Huff was out of job until January. Now, he will celebrate Thanksgiving with a two-year contract to return to the Giants, who opened their coffers wide in their first significant move to retain the core of an offense that hoisted them to the title.

The deal for the first baseman and outfielder, finalized Tuesday, will pay him $10 million each in 2011 and 2012 and includes a $10 million team option or a $2 million buyout for 2013, making the guaranteed value $22 million.

That is a lot of dough for a player who turns 34 in December, but Huff gave the Giants a lot for $3 million during his first season in San Francisco. He finished seventh in the National League Most Valuable Player voting and, just as important, helped foster a loose and happy clubhouse by letting his oddball personality all hang out.

It's a shame that one of Huff's spikes, and not his rally thong, is part of the Giants championship exhibit on display in Cooperstown.

General manager Brian Sabean said Huff's signing was "critical for the lineup, being our third hitter, left-handed, his profile and his versatility being able to play first base and the outfield."

Besides hitting .290, he led the Giants in all the big categories: homers, RBIs, hits, walks, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. His .891 OPS (on base plus slugging) ranked 10th in the league.

Beyond that, Huff's ability to play first base or either corner position in the outfield gives Sabean significant flexibility going into an offseason in which two potential starters, Pablo Sandoval because of his weight and offensive decline, and Mark DeRosa coming off a second wrist operation, will not be able to prove themselves until spring training.

If Sabean chooses to sign or trade for another corner outfielder or infielder, he knows he can shift Huff to make it work.

"He was such an important piece of the puzzle this year with what he brought to us hitting in the three spot for the most part, and his versatility," manager Bruce Bochy said.

"You don't have many players who can do what Aubrey did, play first and the outfield plus a left-handed bat who can hit the way he does, and what he brought with the overall dynamic for the club, the presence on the field and off the field in the clubhouse."

Sabean said talks with Huff accelerated because another team was hot on his trail. Huff agreed to return when the Giants matched the other club's offer.

"He certainly did his part and got his just reward because of it," Sabean said.

In other news:

-- Sabean said talks with free-agent infielder Juan Uribe are not going as quickly because there are more teams going after him.

"I think both sides were willing to do something faster, but we're not talking the same language yet as far as the ballpark figures," Sabean said.

-- At the same time, Sabean continues to discuss potential trades for shortstop, saying he had one conversation today. Two shortstops rumored to be available are Jason Bartlett of Tampa Bay and Marco Scutaro of Boston.

-- Bochy said Sandoval has chosen to live and train in Arizona this offseason, not San Diego. That is critical because the Giants' trainers live and work in Arizona during the winter and can monitor him more closely.

-- First base and outfield prospect Brandon Belt will have a chance to win a job out of spring training.

"I think this kid is going to make some noise out of spring training," Bochy said.

-- Sabean said he might not tender contracts to all eight arbitration-eligible players, but that outfielder Cody Ross will be offered a contract and play in the Giants outfield in 2011.

Giants catcher Buster Posey wins NL Rookie of the Year award

Andrew Baggarly Mercury News

Buster Posey has a trophy to go along with his World Series ring.

The Giants' young catcher showed the leadership of a veteran as he guided a talented pitching staff all the way to the first championship in the franchise's 53 seasons in San Francisco. His acumen also made him the clear choice as the NL Rookie of the Year, as announced by the Baseball Writers Association of America on Monday.

Posey easily outpointed another kid from Georgia, Atlanta Braves right fielder Jason Heyward, drawing 20 of 32 first-place votes to become the Giants' first recipient of the award since pitcher John Montefusco in 1975.

Posey joined an exclusive club of Giants to win the award -- a Hall of Fame-studded group that includes Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Gary Matthews.

"It gives me chills to be mentioned with those names "... and to be one of few Giants to win the award," Posey said on a conference call. "Those guys were unbelievable players and great ambassadors to the game and they still are. I'm extremely humbled to be mentioned in same category as them."

Votes were due before the playoffs began, so the Giants' run to the World Series wasn't a consideration. It was expected to be a close vote between Posey and Heyward, each of whom was named on 31 of 32 ballots.

But Heyward received just nine first-place votes along with 20 second-place votes and two thirds to finish with 107 points. Posey had nine second-place votes and two thirds to finish with 129 points.

"I knew he would win this, with the year he had," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "Here's a guy that hit in the heart of our order, handling our pitching staff. We threw a lot at him, but what a great job he did. No question in my mind, I'm very happy for him, and what a storybook season. The kid is an incredible talent as we know, and his tremendous makeup makes him even more of a special player."

Posey, 23, said it was "surreal" to win the award, adding that he didn't think about it until after the season.

"I was just trying to make an impact with the team and get some wins," he said.

Posey's impact was undeniable. The Giants promoted him May 29, after he tore up Triple-A pitching, and he played mostly first base before the club traded catcher Bengie Molina on July 1.

Posey responded by hitting .417 with seven home runs in July to earn NL Player of the Month honors. During the month, he also put together a 21-game hitting streak -- the longest by any NL player in 2010 and one short of matching the Giants' rookie mark set by McCovey in 1959.

The Giants were 40-38 at the time of the trade; they went 52-32 after that, and Posey guided a pitching staff that held opponents to three runs or fewer in 23 of their last 26 regular-season games.

"I haven't had a player in his first year make the kind of impact that Buster made on this club," Bochy said. "You look where we were when he joined us. Then you look where we finished up. You've got to credit the guy behind the plate.

"Once he caught a couple games, I could see how comfortable he was, and I was convinced right off the bat that he was ready."

Posey's award also represents a victory for scouting director John Barr, who made Posey the fifth overall pick shortly after the Giants hired him to coordinate the 2008 draft. Barr deflected credit, but acknowledged the organization felt Posey could win this award when they drafted him.

"Definitely, we did," said Barr, reached by phone in the Dominican Republic. "We felt he could be a difference maker because he could help both offensively and be an asset with his work behind the plate. That was the main reason we were so excited about getting him.

"There's a lot of people involved, all the people who helped to bring him in the organization and refine him. But this is all about him. It's about the player and his ability and makeup. My hat's off to him.

"This is just one step in his career and in our organization."

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Jaime Garcia was named on 18 ballots, receiving 16 third-place votes, to finish third. Florida Marlins first baseman Gaby Sanchez received two first-place votes but was named on just eight ballots.

The only voter to omit Posey from his ballot was Los Angeles-based Yasushi Kikuchi of Kyodo News. He listed Sanchez, Heyward and Garcia.

Posey might have cemented the award Sept. 21 at Chicago's Wrigley Field, when he hit a home run, caught four pitchers in a combined two-hitter and threw out an attempted base stealer in a 1-0 victory that kept the Giants in first place.

Posey became the first catcher to win a Rookie of the Year award and a World Series ring in the same season. And he repeated his podium-slapping message from the Giants' victory parade, saying he's readying himself for another title run next season.

He plans to work on strength training and improving flexibility, especially in his hips, when he resumes workouts in another week. For now, he and his wife are vacationing in the Florida Keys.

Posey received a standing ovation in Tallahassee on Saturday when he was recognized on the field during a first-quarter timeout in the Florida State-Clemson football game.

"There's been a lot of stuff going on," he said. "I don't feel I've got the chance to catch up yet."

With Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz winning the AL award, it marks just the third time that both prizewinning rookies met in the World Series. Current Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti was the AL Rookie of the Year in 1981, when his Yankees lost to the Dodgers and Fernando Valenzuela. In 1951, Mays and his New York Giants lost to the Yankees and San Francisco native Gil McDougald.

For more on the Giants, see Andrew Baggarly's Extra Baggs blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs.

EXCLUSIVE CLUB

Buster Posey became the sixth Giants player -- and the first in 35 years -- to win the Rookie of the Year award. The award was first given in 1947.

1951: Willie Mays, outfielder

1958: Orlando Cepeda, first baseman

1959: Willie McCovey, first baseman

1973: Gary Matthews, outfielder

1975: John Montefusco, pitcher

2010: Buster Posey, catcher

Carl Steward: For San Francisco Giants fans, the past melts away

Carl Steward
MercuryNews

The local television stations keep showing footage of the overflowing bars and the clogged streets, filled mostly with jubilant 20-something Giants fans who think they have seen torture and survived it.

Go ahead and celebrate, kids. Savor that parade. No doubt, you have seen a certain kind of torture this year, and you have earned the right to rage.

But trust those of us who have weathered the real torture of the past half-century. And be mindful that a moment like this might come along just once in a lifetime, proof of that being the many among us who have spent our lifetime waiting for the moment that has finally arrived.

It is unlikely any of the 2010 Giants can comprehend the massive exorcism they have performed for their older fans: The release from 52 years of mixed baseball memories in San Francisco, some of them good, a lot of them frustrating, but all of them ending without the ultimate prize -- a World Series title.

As a 57-year-old who latched onto the Giants at age 10 in the early 1960s, the shackles of lifelong disillusionment and disappointment are finally unbound. I got to see one. A Giants World Series win in San Francisco. One is all that was needed. I can die happy now.

As I think about that, I mourn for people I have known in my business who didn't get to see it, among them Hall of Fame longtime Giants beat writer Bob Stevens and Sports Illustrated writer Ron Fimrite. I think of former Giants broadcasters Lon Simmons and Hank Greenwald -- long-timers and great people -- who did. I can only imagine how they are feeling.

And then there is Mike Murphy. The Giants' clubhouse man since they first arrived in San Francisco in 1958 will get a World Series ring on opening day next year. Murphy has seen it all -- every broken bat, every broken dream, every broken heart. I'm just guessing that when his name is announced to accept his ring next April, he might get the loudest ovation. After all, for real longtime Giants fans, there is a little part of Murph in all of us.

We don't have to forget the trip down misery lane, but we can read it now and view it as history cleansed from our heretofore ghost-ridden subconscious:

Willie McCovey's line drive to Bobby Richardson. The failed bunt attempt by Felipe Alou. Ralph Terry. Four straight second-place finishes under Herman Franks and one more under Clyde King. The late-September swoons of 1965 and 1969. The disallowed Dick Dietz hit by pitch that would have ruined Don Drysdale's scoreless streak. The regrettable Juan Marichal-John Roseboro incident. Braves pitcher Tony Cloninger's two grand slams in one game.

Orlando Cepeda for Ray Sadecki. Willie Mays for Charlie Williams and $50,000. Gaylord Perry for Sam McDowell. George Foster for Frank Duffy and Vern Geishert.

Bob Robertson's three-homer game in the '71 NLCS. Bob Johnson outdueling the fading Marichal in the same series. Dave Kingman, sold to the Mets for $150,000. All those brutally cold Candlestick nights. All those Ron Cey home runs. All those Darrell Evans foul home runs. Tommy Lasorda blowing kisses. Smilin' Steve Garvey. Beer and battery nights with Reggie Smith.

The mostly lifeless Spec Richardson/Joe Altobelli years. A crowd of 851 against the Braves in '75. The rise and fall of Mike Ivie. Jack Clark for David Green, Dave LaPoint, Gary Rajsich, and, well, Jose Uribe. Rick Monday's Oct. 1 eighth-inning slam off Fred Breining in 1982. Johnnie LeMaster and his "BOO" uniform. The Frank Robinson/Jim Barr square-off. Jim Davenport's 100-loss managerial season in 1985. Andy McGaffigan, any time he faced Dale Murphy. Mike Scott, eliminating the Giants with a no-hitter in '86. Candy Maldonado's sliding NLCS Game 6 misplay in '87. Jose Oquendo, for crying out loud, going deep off Atlee Hammaker in Game 7. One Flap Down, Jeffrey Leonard, NLCS MVP "... for the losing team.

Dave Dravecky's horrifying breakdown in Montreal and his subsequent arm amputation because of cancer. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake only minutes before Candlestick's first World Series game in 27 years. Mike Moore's double over Brett Butler's head. The four-game bludgeoning by the A's (Madison Bumgarner was just 2 months old). The 103 wins and no playoffs, in '93. Salomon Torres in Game 162. Will "the Thrill" Clark's too-quiet departure in 1994. A young Edgar Renteria's walk-off hit in Game 1 that sparked Florida's sweep of the 1997 NLDS. The one-game playoff loss at Chicago in 1998, Rod Beck saving it against his old team. The three straight losses to the Mets, including a one-hit shutout by unheralded Bobby Jones, to lose the NLDS in 2000.

Five outs to go in 2002. Dusty Baker giving the ball to Russ Ortiz. Scott Spiezio going yard off Felix Rodriguez. The mind-numbing Rally Monkey thump in Games 6 and 7. J.T. Snow getting gunned down at home against Florida in the 2003 NLDS. Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano for A.J. Pierzynski. Two-and-a-half years of the most reviled Giant ever, Armando Benitez.

Horace Stoneham's near-sale to Toronto. Bob Lurie announcing he was moving to Oakland without telling Oakland. The failure of Sixth and Townsend. The failure in San Jose. Lurie's near-sale to St. Petersburg.

The Croix de Candlestick. Crazy Crab. Hang In There. You Gotta Like These Kids. Real Grass, Real Sunshine, Real Baseball. Humm Baby. Team Of Dustiny.

The sad, premature deaths of three Giants stalwarts: Bobby Bonds, Tom Haller, Rod "Shooter" Beck.

The $126 million to Barry Zito, which could have ruined all of this.

Finally, the performance-enhancement cloud hanging over the many wondrous performances and achievements of one Barry Lamar Bonds.

None of these memories will go away, of course, and they shouldn't. But in the wake of this remarkable, mystical, somewhat torturous but ultimately rapturous 2010 Giants season, they won't haunt and torment anymore. They'll just give it richer perspective.

Today, it's as if McCovey's line drive finally went through. And the earthquake didn't happen. And Spiezio struck out. And Snow was safe. Giants fans finally are free and fulfilled, liberated from 52 years of titleless infamy in San Francisco.

Giants Release World Series MVP Renteria

Mike Lovell
Talkin' Giants Baseball
The Giants released World Series MVP Edgar Renteria.

Renteria was 2011 team option was not picked up. Renteria will receive a $500,000 buy out. San Francisco Giants General Manager Brian Sabean stated that Renteria plans on playing in 2011 and did not rule out a return to the Giants as a back-up player.

Renteria shined for the 2010 World Champion Giants in the World Series and playoffs.

Giants on top of the world

Henry Schulman SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

The Giants serenaded their thirsty fans with the perfect anthem before the first pitch of the 2010 World Series. The song they piped through AT&T Park was U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."

The search lasted more than half a century and seemed so futile at times. Finally, the team and its long-pained fans have found what they were looking for. For the first time since the Giants moved to San Francisco in 1958, they are the champions of baseball.

The Giants won the 2010 World Series against the Texas Rangers four games to one, ending it with a 3-1 victory on a slightly chilly Monday evening at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

The unlikely hero for a Series winner that few predicted was Edgar Renteria, an injury-plagued shortstop from Colombia who declared he expected to retire after the season and whose two-year $18.5 million contract was ridiculed because the Giants gave it to a player thought to be washed up.

Renteria joined the pantheon of World Series greats when he hit a three-run homer against Cliff Lee with two outs in the seventh inning to break a 0-0 tie.

Actually, Renteria already had a seat in the temple. In 1997, then 21 years old and a big-leaguer for less than two seasons, he won a World Series for Florida with an 11th-inning single in Game 7 against Cleveland.

Tim Lincecum, the two-time Cy Young Award winner whose photo adorned the cover of the Giants' 2010 media guide, allowed three hits and struck out 10 in eight innings in the most important win of his 26-year-old life.

The Series ended with closer Brian Wilson on the mound, as usual, retiring the final hitter. He struck out Nelson Cruz swinging to set off a celebration sure to rock the Bay Area for long time. After all, everyone had generations to plan it.

With the first toast, revelers could bid good riddance to the ghosts of failures past.

Willie McCovey's line drive to Bobby Richardson in 1962, the earthquake sweep in 1989 and the Game 6 collapse in 2002 - their power to spook the faithful is gone, defused by an accomplishment that few in baseball thought the Giants could achieve in a season in which they did not even secure a division title until the 162nd game of the regular season.

The Giants leaped atop one another in celebration of the final out was a sight that many Northern Californians feared they would not see before they themselves became ghosts.

The championship is the sixth in franchise history and first since 1954, when Willie Mays roamed center field of the Polo Grounds in New York and led the team to a four-game sweep of the Cleveland Indians.

Lincecum and Lee gave viewers the great pitching duel they were expected to provide in Game 1, when Lincecum was shaky and Lee was worse. The Giants stung him for seven runs in an 11-7 win.

Game 5 was a bare-knuckle pitching brawl with neither man giving any quarter until Cody Ross and Juan Uribe opened the seventh inning with singles.

In a perfect symbol of the team concept that defined these champions, Aubrey Huff, the Giants' biggest power hitter all season, advanced the runners with his first career sacrifice bunt.

Pat Burrell struck out for the 10th time in 12 at-bats in the Series for the second out before Renteria built the count against Lee to 2-0 and drove a cut fastball into the bleachers in left-center field for his second homer of the Series and the biggest of his life.

Cruz cut into the lead in the bottom half with a solo homer to left, which ended a string of 18 scoreless innings by Giants pitchers. Lincecum then walked Ian Kinsler, but he struck out David Murphy and former Giant Bengie Molina to preserve the two-run lead.

Both pitchers shot out of the chute better than they did in Game 1. Lincecum was particularly sharp, inducing weaker outs.

He did not have a strikeout until the third inning then struck out the side. He did not allow a hit until Michael Young's leadoff single in the fourth, a groundball through the middle, and struck out two of the next three Rangers to keep him at first base.

Against Lee, the Giants stuck with their same schematic from the first game, when they attacked him early in the count. In Game 1, the left-hander left a lot of pitches over the plate and was roughed up. He did a better job locating in Game 5, though the Giants hit some bolts for outs.

With Andres Torres at first base and two outs, Lee raised his glove to spear a Freddy Sanchez line drive to steal a hit and end the top of the third.

Buster Posey worked Lee for 10 pitches in the fourth inning before grounding out on the 11th.

Next time Posey batted, with Freddy Sanchez on base and two outs in the sixth, it looked for a moment as though the rookie had given the Giants a 2-0 lead with a high drive to right. But Cruz tracked it down at the wall to preserve the scoreless tie.

Box Score

Madison Bumgarner pitches SF Giants to brink

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

The Texas Rangers might demand a birth certificate. Suuuure, he's 21. Suuuure this is his first postseason. Madison Bumgarner looks as if he has done this a thousand times before.

But no, this was Bumgarner's first World Series start, and even if the Rangers doubt his age, they cannot question his stuff, not after he pitched the Giants to the brink of a championship in Game 4 Sunday night.

In a 4-0 victory, the Giants' second shutout of the Series, Bumgarner held Texas to three hits in eight innings, matching the best start of his career. He threw eight shutout innings, the first pitcher to do so in the Series since St. Louis' Chris Carpenter in Game 3 in 2006 against Detroit.

Furthermore, the 21-year-old became the fourth-youngest starter to win in the World Series. His night, and perhaps his rookie season, ended with a looking strikeout of Game 3 hitting star Mitch Moreland. Brian Wilson pitched the ninth.

Bumgarner had some power to back him up from an offense that has outhomered Texas' highly regarded mashers 6-2. Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey each hit his first postseason homer, Huff with one aboard. In between, Andres Torres doubled home Edgar Renteria in the seventh, when each had his third hit of the game.

The Giants secured the one win they truly needed in the three games at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington and lead the Series three games to one. Since the American and National Leagues began knocking heads in 1903, 35 of the 41 teams to take a 3-1 lead captured the title.

The Giants can celebrate San Francisco's first Series win on this field tonight in the Game 1 rematch pitting Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee. Even if the Rangers get the Series back to AT&T Park, the Giants would have two more chances to win the decisive game.

Pitching without hesitation or wasted effort, Bumgarner suffocated a good Texas lineup with all his pitches working. He did not allow a runner to reach second base until the seventh inning and ended two mini-rallies with double plays.

Bumgarner also struck out Vlad Guerrero three times, twice retiring him on changeups that drew awful, half-hearted swings.

The Giants forced Texas starter Tommy Hunter to throw 83 pitches in four innings, but their take was only two runs.

They scored in the third when Torres hit a leadoff double, a ball that hit first base, and Huff, the designated hitter, hit a two-run, two-area-code drive down the right-field line well over the fence, giving the Giants their first lead in Texas, 2-0.

Huff went deep in his 51st postseason at-bat. Tack on the end of the regular season and his drought had totaled 76 at-bats.

Torres hit his RBI double in the seventh against Darren Oliver. Sidewinder Darren O'Day, who got Posey to ground out in a key situation in Game 3, surrendered the rookie catcher's homer in the eighth, a high fly that would not stop carrying until it reached the grassy knoll in center field.

With eight strikeouts in nine Series at-bats, Pat Burrell found himself on the bench for Game 4, replaced by Nate Schierholtz. Also, Travis Ishikawa played first base with Huff the DH, a role he knew well in the American League.

Ishikawa and Schierholtz had not started together since July 21 and totaled 15 at-bats off the bench in the first 13 postseason games. Now, each was making his first start in the World Series.

Manager Bruce Bochy said he decided on Ishikawa at first after Game 3 and told him. He slept on the Burrell decision and did not write Schierholtz into the lineup until Sunday.

"I got excited," Ishikawa said. "When I first heard, I thought it was great. It wasn't until I got to the field today that it really hit me this was a World Series game and I'll be living out every childhood fantasy that a kid has of playing major-league baseball. It'll be tough to control my excitement. I've got to find a way to do it."

Freddy Sanchez went hitless at the plate but contributed in the field.

He played highlight-reel bingo in the second inning, which ended when he soared into the air to catch Jeff Francoeur's scorching liner. Sanchez was lurching backward, too, and did a reverse somersault as he landed.

In fact, Sanchez could have produced a two-volume set of highlights in this game. He nearly made a fantastic play to prevent Texas' first hit, a Michael Young grounder. When Bumgarner deflected Josh Hamilton's subsequent grounder to Sanchez, he grabbed it and deftly tagged Young going by.

After Bumgarner struck out Guerrero with a changeup, Sanchez took a short-hopped throw from Buster Posey and tagged Hamilton on steal attempt.

Box Score

San Francisco Giants lose to Texas Rangers in Game 3 of World Series

Andrew Baggarly
MercuryNews

The Giants are a team that washes off defeat and looks on the bright side. So in that spirit, there is this:

They cannot clinch the first World Series championship in the city's history on Halloween night. And that should come as a relief to the fine folks working the switchboard for the San Francisco Police Department.

Thus ends the bright side from Saturday night's stompin' good time for the locals in the Metroplex. Jonathan Sanchez got railroaded by the Texas Rangers, and the Giants offense, which glittered as it rolled along in two home games, turned back into a pumpkin in a 4-2 loss at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington.

There won't be a greased slide to a parade on Market Street. Suddenly, the Giants must win Game 4 behind 21-year-old rookie Madison Bumgarner to keep this series from becoming a best-of-three free-for-all.

"You know, the momentum "... obviously we're still down one game, but it's shifted," said Josh Hamilton, the Rangers' leading man, who hit a solo home run off Sanchez. "I mean, we're at home, we've got the fans behind us. We're right where we want to be."

The Giants still are the lead hound in this race, but their pace has slowed on several alarming fronts.

Sanchez, operating with reduced velocity that concerned pitching coach Dave Righetti, couldn't sneak an inside heater past No. 9 hitter Mitch Moreland. His three-run home run in the second inning cued the waving towels as red fireworks streaked the sky.

Pat Burrell's bat looked plenty slow, too, while he struck out in all four of his trips.

"You've got to come in tomorrow, have a positive mindset, put your work in and take something positive into the game," said Burrell, who might need Jedi mind tricks to accomplish that.

Cody Ross and Andres Torres hit solo home runs, but the Giants had huge holes in their lineup. Designated hitter Pablo Sandoval failed to take advantage of his rare start, going hitless in three at-bats while bouncing into a double play. And Burrell became the first Giant to strike out four times in a World Series game since Josh Devore in 1911.

"I picked a bad time to struggle," said Burrell, who is 0 for 9 with eight strikeouts in the series and has struck out 19 times in 38 postseason at-bats. "There's no way around it. I'm getting pitches to hit and just not doing anything with them. I'm chasing some balls off the plate.

"I'm supposed to "... be a presence at the plate. That's what I'm here for, and I just didn't do that. You've got to be accountable for what you do, and certainly I didn't get the job done tonight, not even close."

Giants manager Bruce Bochy said he would "sleep on" the decision of a designated hitter for Game 4 today. Asked about sticking with Burrell, he didn't commit, but he lauded the big hits Burrell has provided the Giants this season.

What if Bochy takes Burrell out of the lineup?

"Could I blame him? Probably not," said Burrell, adding he wants to play. "I mean, I'm not exactly swinging the bat real well. And this is a terribly important time for our team. So I'll show up ready to play, and we'll see."

That's not all the coaching staff will discuss. There's also the matter of Sanchez, who claimed to have good stuff but brought a fastball that touched 90 mph in the first inning and mostly resided in the upper 80s. With Sanchez's next turn in a potential Game 7, Righetti said he and Bochy would discuss alternatives.

"Damn right, absolutely," Righetti said. "One way or another, I'm sure it'll come up. You're not talking about 1 or 2 mph. He's pitching at 88. "

Sanchez nearly escaped the second inning after Nelson Cruz hit a laser-beam double off the center-field wall, and Bengie Molina drew a rare, two-out walk.

Moreland, a former college pitcher who made his major league debut July 29, fouled off four pitches with two strikes -- all curveballs and changeups -- before catcher Buster Posey called for an inside fastball. Moreland turned on it to win the nine-pitch battle -- a surprising result for a player who had only 20 at-bats against left-handed pitchers in the regular season, and no home runs.

"He hit my pitch," Sanchez said. "It wasn't a mistake. That was the game right there."

Posey said: "We stayed away from Moreland the whole at-bat, and we tried to come in. I'll take as much blame for it as him. I thought it was a good pitch, and the guy just put a good swing on it."

Hamilton crushed Sanchez's hanging curveball for a solo shot in the fifth, an inning that the left-hander couldn't survive.

The bullpen gave the Giants a chance to rally, but Rangers right-hander Colby Lewis improved to 3-0 with a 1.71 ERA in four postseason starts. The slider specialist twirled a gem into the eighth inning, and hard-throwing rookie closer Neftali Feliz, 22, became the youngest pitcher to record a save in the World Series since Nolan Ryan in 1969.

Now the Giants need Bumgarner, despite his significant workload, to have something in his tank -- especially when so many others are operating on fumes.

"It makes it harder to compete when you don't have that jump on your fastball that you're used to having," Righetti said of Sanchez. "It's going to happen this time of year. Timmy (Lincecum) is dealing with it. They're all dealing with it."

Box Score

San Francisco Giants win again, blast Texas Rangers 9-0

Andrew Baggarly
MercuryNews

For all their dyed facial hair, lucky underpants and goofball antics, the Giants do more than entertain themselves within the clubhouse. Theirs is an arm-in-arm mutual admiration society, too.

In front of another surging, celebratory scene at China Basin, two of their most admired comrades stood in the World Series glow of a 9-0 victory Thursday night.

Matt Cain, underappreciated everywhere but where it most mattered, scolded the Texas Rangers into the eighth inning. And Edgar Renteria, the aging but noble shortstop, added one more graceful swing to his October lore.

Renteria cracked a solo home run into the left-field bleachers to break a scoreless tie in the fifth inning, Cain stood as immovable as a seawall, and the Giants loosened the Rangers' footing in this tug-of-war for a championship.

"Well, the whole world is seeing how good our pitching is," Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff said. "But we're going to their place, and their fans will be fired up. They've been waiting a long time for this, too."

Of 51 teams to take a 2-0 lead in the World Series, 40 have hoisted the trophy, including 13 of the past 14 occasions. The 1996 Atlanta Braves are the only exception.

That's small comfort for anyone old enough to remember Willie McCovey's line drive to Bobby Richardson in 1962. Scott Spiezio's Game 6 home run in 2002 remains a fresh memory, too.

But the Giants have both six-shooters loaded as they continue this series in Texas. At worst, they're guaranteed a minimum of one more game on the shores of McCovey Cove.

Renteria added a two-run single during a seven-run eighth inning after the Rangers bullpen lost the GPS coordinates on the strike zone. The binge allowed the Giants to give bearded closer Brian Wilson a night off, letting Guillermo Mota see his first postseason action in a torture-free ninth.

The Giants are catching the breaks of a destined team, too -- none bigger than Ian Kinsler's drive in the fifth that dinked off the padded wall in straightaway center field, keeping the Rangers from scoring the game's first run by mere millimeters.

"I don't know how that happened," center fielder Andres Torres said. "But things happen for a reason."

Kinsler settled for a leadoff double in the fifth, and Cain all but Velcroed him there while retiring the next two hitters.

"I cashed it in as one run, then I saw Torres had thrown it in, and he was standing on second," Cain said. "From there, I just said, 'We'll just get the next guy and see how it works out.'"

It's working like gangbusters for Cain, who gave up only three other hits in 72/3 innings. He hasn't allowed an earned run in three postseason starts, spanning 211/3 innings. He's the fifth pitcher in major league history to throw at least 20 innings with a 0.00 ERA in a single postseason; Christy Mathewson and Carl Hubbell, two Giants Hall of Famers, are among the others.

Spotting his hard but no-frills fastball and flipping his little curveball for strikes, Cain held the Rangers hitless in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position. In the postseason, he's allowed one hit in 15 at-bats in those situations.

"That's the Cain I saw the last 31/2 years, and he was probably even better tonight," Rangers catcher Bengie Molina said. "He gets that curveball over for strikes all the time now. He's been a good pitcher for a long time, but wow, he seemed to take it to another level tonight."

Renteria, 35, has 2,252 hits in his career and 57 more in the postseason, none bigger than his walk-off single as a rookie in Game 7 to deliver a World Series title to the Florida Marlins. The clip of his youthful exhilaration as he ran to first base has been played and replayed.

Now his body is betraying him. He spent three stints on the disabled list and is likely to retire after the season. But the big moment found him again.

"He's playing like he did 10 years ago," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.

Said Renteria: "It is a long time ago. Thirteen years ago, you know? But I feel great. I was always ready for a moment like now. I'm trying to trust in whatever I've got."

Cain issued a walk in the eighth and handed over the baseball with a two-run lead. Then the longest-tenured Giant walked off the mound like a grim Gary Cooper as a sellout crowded roared its appreciation.

"It's hard to believe he's 26 years old," Bochy said. "He's the oldest Giant we have here."

Will he ever tip his cap?

"Aw, you can't do it with runners on base," Cain said. "It just didn't seem right. But it is cool -- really cool. To walk off the field and hear 43,000 people cheering for you "... definitely."

Box Score

SF Giants win Game 1, 11-7

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

The national press gave the Giants little chance to win this World Series and no chance to beat Cliff Lee on Wednesday. When that was conveyed to Matt Cain, the laconic starter said, "We'll just have to write a different story."

If 43,601 had not crammed into AT&T Park to witness the tale the Giants penned in Game 1, few would have believed it. They hounded and pounded Lee off the mound in a six-run fifth inning that shot them to an 11-7 win against the Rangers, the "hitting team" in this series.

What an unexpected score in such an unexpected season.

"If you threw a hundred bucks on it in Vegas, you'd be a millionaire," Aubrey Huff said.

The Giants got an important leg up. The Game 1 victor has won six of the last seven World Series and 11 of the last 13, though the Giants know the short end of that history. They took the opener in 2002.

Lee had not lost in eight postseason starts. This postseason, he had surrendered two runs over 24 innings. So forgive the rest of America if it failed to understand how a Giants team that scrimps and scraps for every run hammered the left-hander for seven (six earned) in 4 2/3 innings.

Lee had not allowed more than three extra-base hits in any postseason start. Freddy Sanchez matched that by the fifth inning in becoming the first Giant since Hall of Famer Monte Irvin in 1954, who attended the game, to collect four hits in a Series game.

The Giants broke a 2-2 tie with the six-run fifth, their biggest inning in a World Series since 1937. Two-out singles by Cody Ross and Huff gave the Giants a 5-2 lead and chased Lee, whose butt probably had not reached the bench when Juan Uribe slammed a three-run homer against side-winding reliever Darren O'Day.

Giants hitters did not seem overly impressed by their destruction of Lee, though they must have seen his comments Tuesday in which he dismissed their hitting prowess.

"When all is said and done, we just wanted to be up 1-0," Ross said. "It didn't matter if it was Cliff Lee or whoever. He is one of the best pitchers in the postseason, and we beat him."

Manager Bruce Bochy was so pumped about the Series he came to the park at 10 a.m. Two innings into the game, he probably wished he had slept in - until Game 2.

When Bochy's head hit the pillow Wednesday night, he had his first victory as a World Series manager.

Tim Lincecum went to sleep a winner after a shaky start. He allowed single runs in the first two innings with some bizarre occurrences on the field. He botched a rundown in the first inning when he thought two Rangers were standing on third base when there was one. He also surrendered the first run of the Series on a Vladimir Guerrero single off his left shin, the first of two balls to nail him.

For the first two innings, the Rangers looked like World Series pros, though this was their first Series game in franchise history, and the Giants looked nervous. Lincecum did not dispute that.

"Maybe a little bit, because it is the World Series," he said. "It's a first for a lot of us and a different kind of atmosphere. But you try to use what you've been through these last couple of series to help you through it."

The turning point was the third inning when two Texas mistakes allowed the Giants to tie the game 2-2. Third baseman Michael Young booted Edgar Renteria's leadoff grounder and Lee hit Andres Torres with an 0-2 pitch. Sanchez more than compensated for a pair of earlier baserunning gaffes by lining an RBI double into the left-field corner. Buster Posey then tied it with a single.

As Lincecum found his groove, the Giants busted loose in the fifth. Torres hit a one-out double and scored on Sanchez's third double. With two outs, the Giants went ballistic.

Pat Burrell was the only Giants position player without a hit, but he drew a walk, which might be tougher against Lee. Ross and Huff KO'd Lee with singles ahead of Uribe's home run.

Huff said the Giants' free-swinging ways helped against Lee.

"He's a strike-thrower," Huff said. "You don't want to get down 0-1, 0-2. Then he gets to the good stuff."

Though the Giants allowed seven runs, they held MVP candidate Josh Hamilton hitless in four at-bats. In fact, the 3-4-5 combo of Hamilton, Guerrero and Nelson Cruz went 2-for-13.

The Giants scored three runs in the eighth on an RBI double by Travis Ishikawa and scoring singles by Nate Schierholtz and Sanchez, the rally aided by two Guerrero errors in right field. They had 14 hits and led 11-4 but still went to Brian Wilson for the final two outs as the Rangers reminded everyone with three runs what havoc their offense can wreak.

When the 18-run affair was done, Wilson might have coined a motto to supplant "Giants baseball: torture."

"It's postseason baseball," he said. "Anything goes."

Trumping aces

The Giants have fared well against two pitchers hyped as nearly unbeatable in this postseason.

Cliff Lee, Rangers

Box Score

Giants Win Pennant....2010 National League Champions

Juan Uribe's homer lifts SF Giants to World Series

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

Let the weak-minded beware, and tell the stodgy to shutter their televisions. Bruce Bochy's misfits and mercenaries are going to rush headlong into Ron Washington's claws and antlers in the 2010 World Series.

The Giants continued their inspired postseason Saturday night by beating the Phillies 3-2 in a wild Game 6 of the National League Championship Series to reach a World Series that even the screwiest mind could not have conjured when the season began.

They got there because of a man who owns one championship ring, wants another and delivered what will be remembered as one of the greatest home runs in franchise history.

With two outs in the eighth inning, Uribe broke a 2-2 tie that had stood since the third inning when he attacked the first pitch from Ryan Madson and sent it just over the wall in right field, only his third hit in 14 at-bats in the series. Uribe raised his right arm in jubilation as he saw the ball go over.

The celebration began after Brian Wilson completed a five-out save. Bochy had Tim Lincecum start the eighth inning. Lincecum allowed two singles before Wilson got Carlos Ruiz to line into a double play.

Wilson walked two in the ninth - of course - but the game and Philadelphia's season ended when Wilson threw a called third strike past Ryan Howard, a slider, forcing a sellout crowd of 46,062 to watch in near-silence as the Giants celebrated on the infield.

The Giants captured the 19th pennant in franchise history and their fourth in San Francisco by taking the National League Championship Series four games to two.

They won the NLCS for the third time in five tries since the series was introduced and will open the World Series against the speedy and powerful Texas Rangers at AT&T Park on Wednesday night.

The bullpen earned as many accolades as Uribe for the clinching win, although "bullpen" must be used loosely here. Starters Lincecum and Madison Bumgarner joined Jeremy Affeldt, Javier Lopez and Wilson in pitching seven shutout innings after Jonathan Sanchez failed to get an out in the third and helped ignite a benches-clearing row.

The Giants had other frustrations. Eleven of them reached base in six innings against postseason stalwart Roy Oswalt yet only two scored, in the third inning, on an Aubrey Huff single and an error. Two familiar issues, the double play and poor clutch hitting, prevented them from doing more damage.

Most notable, Oswalt struck out Buster Posey with a high fastball to strand two in the fifth inning. With two on in the sixth, Edgar Renteria hit into a double play.

The Giants had just tied it 2-2 in the third when Sanchez threw six consecutive balls to start the bottom half. On the first pitch after a visit from coach Dave Righetti, Sanchez hit Chase Utley in the back. As Utley ran to first he grabbed the ball and flipped it toward Sanchez.

The pitcher objected and shouted something at Utley, who shouted back. Utley appeared to say, "What's bull--?" which suggests Sanchez said, "That's bull--."

When Utley took a few slow steps toward the mound the benches emptied. After a long scrum, Bochy removed Sanchez, who looked agitated and angry and probably would have been pulled anyway. The bullpen had been in action since a two-run first inning.

As Sanchez took an almost slow-motion walk to the dugout, he was booed at an aircraft-engine decibel level. His start of two-plus innings was the Giants' shortest in the postseason since the Cubs chased Rick Reuschel in the first inning of Game 2 of the 1989 NLCS.

Bochy turned to little-used Affeldt, who pitched his inning of the year. The two runners he inherited did not move an inch as Affeldt struck out Ryan Howard, retired Jayson Werth on a flyball and got Shane Victorino on a squibber to first.

All that noise and the game remained 2-2. Affeldt provided another 1-2-3 effort in the fourth.

The Phillies got quick jump on Sanchez as they did in their Game 2 win here.

They scored twice in the first inning on a walk, a wild pitch, a Utley RBI double a Howard single and a Werth sacrifice fly. Before Sanchez could retire his second hitter, Guillermo Mota was warming in the bullpen.

But Sanchez limited the damage and allowed the Giants to tie the game 2-2 in the third with a strange rally that began with Sanchez singling, Andres Torres hitting a 399-foot single that popped out of Victorino's glove, a Huff single that scored Sanchez but got Torres thrown out at the plate and a throwing error on Posey's slow roller to third that allowed Huff to score.

Box Score

San Francisco Giants lose 4-2, series extended

Andrew Baggarly
MercuryNews

There is a famous statue of Rocky Balboa, his gloved hands raised in weary triumph, near the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Giants can walk over and visit it today, if they like.

But they cannot hold the pose. Not yet, anyway.

The Philadelphia Phillies didn't become the two-time defending NL champions without stubborn pieces of iron in their lineup and rotation, and they seized on a series of Giants mistakes while taking a 4-2 survival victory Thursday night at AT&T Park.

The Giants still hold a three-to-two edge in this best-of-seven National League championship series, but now they must win on the road. They can clinch a trip to the World Series on Saturday behind Jonathan Sanchez at Citizens Bank Park, with Matt Cain ready for a potential Game 7 on Sunday.

Tim Lincecum said he plans to be available in the bullpen, too.

"We see ourselves more in the driver's seat than them, a little more in control," said Lincecum, who might have thrown a shutout if not for mistakes made behind him. "So it's up to us. You wanted to shut it down in front of the home crowd. But things happened that shouldn't, and we're going back to Philly."

The Phillies survived by beating Lincecum, although that was a matter of semantics. Playing under an intermittent drizzle, the Giants beat themselves in a sloppy, three-run third inning that included an error by first baseman Aubrey Huff that allowed two runs to score. It was preceded by an odd sacrifice bunt that would have resulted in a double play if third baseman Pablo Sandoval had been able to find the bag.

The Giants did not roll over against Roy Halladay either. They pushed, prodded and, in Pat Burrell's case, even screamed obscenities at the presumed Cy Young Award winner.

But they couldn't get the two-out hit they needed to push ahead, Jayson Werth added a solo shot in the ninth off Ramon Ramirez to pad the lead, and the Phillies' top relievers held firm.

After the game, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel revealed that Halladay strained his right groin while trying to put some extra mustard on a fastball to Cody Ross in the second inning.

"He was determined to stay in there," Manuel said of Halladay, who lasted six innings. "I don't know if you noticed the velocity on his fastball fell off, and he was having a hard time pushing off the mound, and he used a lot of cutters and changeups."

He also gave the Giants plenty of hittable pitches. But despite plenty of feisty at-bats that ran up Halladay's pitch count, they couldn't get the hits they needed with runners on base.

Their worst bit of bad luck came in the first inning, after Andres Torres worked a leadoff walk and went to third on Freddy Sanchez's hit-and-run single. Huff scorched a line drive right to first baseman Ryan Howard, who made a diving play.

The Giants pushed across one run in the inning, but they nearly landed an uppercut.

"Turning point in the game," Huff said. "We could've cashed in for a big inning. That one hurt, but the error hurt even more."

Huff's error was the most damaging play in an inning the Giants would like to zap from their memories. Raul Ibañez led off the third inning with a single, and Carlos Ruiz stood as still as a statue as he let Lincecum's 0-2 pitch hit his arm.

Then came one of the strangest sacrifice plays you will ever see. Halladay's bunt bounced off the plate and appeared to spin foul, but catcher Buster Posey alertly pounced on it and immediately threw to third base as Halladay stood in the box.

Sandoval took the throw as he retreated to third base, but he couldn't find the bag. Implored by a shouting home dugout, Sandoval threw to first base to retire Halladay.

"We're inches away from getting a double play," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "So that's a missed opportunity -- and it came back to haunt us."

Shane Victorino followed with a ground ball, and Huff conceded he rushed the play as he looked to throw home and keep Ibañez from scoring the tying run. The ball deflected off Huff's glove and ricocheted into shallow center field as two runs scored.

The Phillies added a run when Placido Polanco singled, and Lincecum blamed himself for not shutting down the rally.

"Aww, man," Huff said. "He's standing up for his first baseman. He's a great pitcher, a great kid. No, this one's on me. Obviously, I made the big one.

"It's all on me tonight."

Lincecum retired the next nine hitters, and the Giants kept threatening Halladay, but they managed only one more hit with runners on base.

Halladay's new nemesis and an old one combined to halve the Phillies' lead in the fourth. Burrell, who exchanged words with the pitcher after a strikeout in the first inning, yanked a double down the left-field line. Cody Ross, who hit two homers off Halladay in Game 1, doubled him in.

But Ross was thrown out trying to tag up on a fly ball to right fielder Werth.

"It was a split-second decision," Ross said. "It was the wrong decision. It kind of took the momentum out from under us."

And a home crowd waited to celebrate.

Box Score

Giants win 6-5, one win from World Series

Henry Schulman SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

A nice pitching duel is great, and the Giants and their opponents have given fans nice share of them this postseason. But most teams that win a World Series will tell you they had to win at least one wacky game along the way.

The Giants won theirs Wednesday night under a full moon, and now stand one win from their fourth pennant and World Series trip in the San Francisco era.

Juan Uribe, who did not start because of his injured wrist, hit a one-out sacrifice fly in the ninth inning off reliever Roy Oswalt to give the Giants a 6-5 victory in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, and how nutty does that sound.

The Giants lead the series three games to one, which puts history squarely in their corner. Thirteen teams have had a 3-1 lead in the NLCS since it was expanded to seven games in 1985. Only the 1996 Cardinals and 2003 Cubs (Steve Bartman series) failed to advance.

Tim Lincecum, 2-0 in his first postseason, can pitch the Giants to their fourth pennant and World Series berth in the San Francisco era tonight in a Game 1 rematch against Roy Halladay, whom they beat with four runs.

It won't be easy, because Halladay has a knack for big rebound games.

He allowed four or more earned runs eight times in the regular season. His ERA in the eight follow-up starts was 1.53, including four games in which he allowed no runs.

After Wednesday, the faithful have to believe anything can happen.

Uribe entered in a double-switch with Brian Wilson in the ninth inning and made a fantastic grab and throw on Ross Gload's grounder in the hole for the first out. After Wilson completed the 1-2-3 inning to preserve a 5-5 tie, the Phillies turned to Game 2 winner Oswalt to pitch the bottom half to face the Giants' 2-3-4 hitters.

Freddy Sanchez lined out to right before Huff grounded the first pitch into right field for a single, his third hit. Buster Posey, who already had three hits and two RBIs in the game, fell behind 0-2 before lining a 1-2 pitch into the right-field corner for a single, moving Huff to third.

Uribe was down in the count 1-2 when he lifted a high fly to deep left, down the line. Huff tagged and scored easily to send AT&T Park into a state of pandemonium.

This game had more twists than a soft Philly pretzel. One sweet twist for the Giants was provided by Pablo Sandoval.

A prolonged sophomore slump and his benching for five games in the postseason could not destroy Sandoval's spirit or work ethic. Finally called upon to do something huge, he lifted the spirits of his teammates and the faithful with a huge hit.

The Giants were down 4-3 after blowing a 2-0 lead when Pat Burrell drew a leadoff walk in the sixth inning against reliever Chad Durbin. Cody Ross, who earlier was hit on the right wrist by a Joe Blanton pitch that looked unintentional, delivered his ninth hit of the postseason, a bloop double down the left-field line.

Sandoval stepped in and lined the first pitch down the right-field line. To Sandoval's disbelief, first-base umpire Jeff Nelson turned and signaled foul. Replays showed he likely was right. Sandoval, undeterred, slammed a 1-2 pitch into the left-center gap. Burrell and Ross scored on Sandoval's first hit of the series to give the Giants a 5-4 lead.

Sandoval came to bat in the seventh with the bases loaded and one out with a chance to put the game away but could not deliver. He dueled reliever Ryan Madsen for eight pitches but grounded into a double play.

Javier Lopez, who pitched a scoreless seventh, was asked to get Ryan Howard in the eighth. Lopez had owned this matchup, striking out the Phils first baseman four times in five career meetings, including twice in this series.

After Lopez just missed trying to catch Howard with a 2-2 front-door breaking pitch, he was forced to challenge Howard and lost. Howard doubled to left-center.

Manager Bruce Bochy turned to Sergio Romo, who, like Sandoval, had lost his role. Romo could not hold the lead, allowing a Jayson Werth double to left, just fair, that tied the game 5-5. Werth was at second with two outs, and Romo kept him there. After Jimmy Rollins popped out, Romo struck out Ben Francisco and Carlos Ruiz.

Box Score

San Francisco Giants beat Philadelphia Phillies, take NLCS lead

Joe Stiglich MercuryNews

The Giants took control of the National League Championship Series on Tuesday with a 3-0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 3 at AT&T Park.

The victory gives the Giants a 2-1 edge in the best-of-seven series and a chance to clinch without heading back to Philadelphia. They're two wins away from advancing to the World Series, with Games 4 and 5 scheduled for AT&T Park on Wednesday and Thursday.

Matt Cain limited the Phillies to two hits over seven innings in his second career postseason start. Javier Lopez and Brian Wilson finished off the final two innings as Philadelphia didn't advance a runner past second base the entire afternoon.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy shook up his batting order considerably after a flat offensive performance in Sunday's Game 2 defeat. Edgar Renteria led off, Cody Ross moved up to the No. 5 spot, Aubrey Huff dropped to sixth and Aaron Rowand replaced Andres Torres in center field and hit eighth.

The adjustments worked.

Renteria led off the fourth with a single off Philadelphia starter Cole Hamels and came around to score the game's first run on Ross' two-out single to left. Ross continued his postseason hot streak and has four RBIs through three NLCS games. Aubrey Huff followed up with a run-scoring single to right in the fourth as the Giants took a 2-0 lead.

They padded their lead in the fifth. Rowand led off with a double to left and Freddy Sanchez scored him with a two-out single that ricocheted off Phillies second baseman Chase Utley. The play was originally scored an error but changed to a hit.

Cain retired his first seven hitters, then sidestepped damage in the third and fourth, when he stranded runners on first an second in each inning.

Bochy moved Jonathan Sanchez up to start Game 2 and dropped Cain into the Game 3 start. That gave Cain a start at AT&T Park, where he's been tough this season.

The right-hander was 0-3 with a 6.23 ERA in five career starts against Philadelphia in the regular season.

Box Score

S.F. Giants lose 6-1 in Philadelphia, series tied

Andrew Baggarly
MercuryNews

According to every baseball axiom, the Giants should feel very, very satisfied. As if they just devoured a cheesesteak grease bomb with the works.

They headed home with a two-game road split after the Philadelphia Phillies took a 6-1 victory in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series Sunday night.

But there remains a gnawing hunger in their gut. The hitters went down too easily against Roy Oswalt, despite another glittering swing from Cody Ross. They didn't play a crisp defensive game, either.

And despite a battle from left-hander Jonathan Sanchez, their pitchers worked off the mound with palpable fear of the Phillies' explosive offense, like they were throwing glasses of water at a raging brush fire.

Shane Victorino doubled and scored the tiebreaking run on Placido Polanco's sacrifice fly in the fifth, and the Phillies broke it open in a four-run seventh inning that included two intentional walks. Jimmy Rollins, the former league MVP from Alameda, hit a bases-clearing double off the scoreboard in right-center field -- a bracing shot from a player whose legs aren't 100 percent and had been 1 for 17 in this postseason.

Do the Phillies have the momentum now? Maybe, maybe not. But behind a determined eight innings of three-hit ball from Oswalt, they certainly did what they needed to slow the Giants' train.

"It wasn't a pretty game for us, all around," said Ross, who hit a tying home run, his fourth of the postseason, to break up Oswalt's no-hitter in the fifth inning. "Defense, offense, everything. This is one when we come off the field in the ninth and walk up those stairs, we have to forget about it.

"All our spirits are fine in here. We're upbeat, and we're ready to go home again."

Manager Bruce Bochy has a DVD of "The Dirty Dozen," but he probably didn't enjoy a relaxing screening on the cross-country flight. He and his coaches had several decisions to chew over after leadoff man Andres Torres struck out four times, leaving him 3 for 25 with 12 strikeouts and one walk this postseason.

And third baseman Mike Fontenot had a rough game, committing a throwing error in Sanchez's 35-pitch first inning and also dropping Rollins' elevator-shaft popup in the fourth. Pablo Sandoval replaced Fontenot in a double switch.

"You'll see a couple of changes," Bochy said.

Oswalt would have been tough on any combination Bochy threw out there. He used pinpoint location and mixed in a few mesmerizing, 65 mph curveballs to strike out nine. Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff noted that Oswalt threw more fastballs than in his four previous starts against the Giants this season, which included three losses while he was still with the Houston Astros.

"He had the good one today," Huff said. "It was getting on your hands. He's got that bowling-ball fastball, and he went after guys."

Ross continued his amazing postseason run, hitting a solo shot to break up a no-hitter for the third consecutive playoff game. He also hit one in the sixth inning off Atlanta's Derek Lowe in Game 4 of the NLDS, and his homer in the third inning Saturday was the first hit off Roy Halladay -- who no-hit the Cincinnati Reds in his first postseason start -- since Sept. 27.

"Amazing," Huff said. "We're fouling them off. He's hitting them."

Ross became the fourth Giant to hit four home runs in a single postseason, tying Jeffrey Leonard in 1987. Barry Bonds hit eight homers in 2002, and Rich Aurilia hit six that postseason.

"When I start seeing the ball real good, things happen," said Ross, who was booed by Phillies fans in every at-bat. "I just tried to get something going for the team and "... tonight it wasn't enough."

Other than Ross' home run, Oswalt refused to allow a runner in scoring position until Sandoval walked, and Freddy Sanchez singled in the eighth.

Jonathan Sanchez nearly matched Oswalt, but that three-walk, 35-pitch first inning took something out of him, and his fastball was in the upper 80s for most of the remainder of the game.

He issued a bases-loaded walk to Rollins in the first, but would have been out of the inning if not for Fontenot's bad throw on Placido Polanco's ground ball.

There probably aren't many stop signs in Oswalt's hometown of Weir, Miss., population 553. He certainly didn't recognize one from third-base coach Sam Perlozzo during the Phillies' four-run seventh inning.

Oswalt's leadoff single drove Jonathan Sanchez from the game, and after a sacrifice and an intentional walk to Chase Utley, Polanco stung a single to center field.

Oswalt ran through Perlozzo's protests and scored when Huff cut off an apparent on-target throw from Torres.

"Bad decision there," said Huff, who reacted after seeing Perlozzo holding out his hands. "The throw was on the money. It nails him. It's just a reaction play. What are you going to do?

"My play was big -- really huge. It changes the whole inning. The rest of the circumstances of the game probably change."

Jeremy Affeldt entered and did his job while striking out Ryan Howard. But the Phillies engineered a double steal during the at-bat, and Bochy had Affeldt intentionally walk Jayson Werth to load the bases.

Santiago Casilla entered, Rollins unloaded the bags and the Phillies made themselves heard in this series. Two-time NL pennant winners have a way of doing that.

Box Score

2 Jacks trump ace Ross goes deep twice as S.F. tops Halladay

Henry Schulman
SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

The Giants now have four of the 11 postseason wins they need to get a World Series victory parade down Market Street. The journey gets only steeper and more treacherous, but on a chilly Saturday evening inside one of baseball's most inhospitable parks, they declared once and for all they will not be pushed off the road.

A crowd of 45,929 whistled at Tim Lincecum the way a man whistles at a woman. The fans booed Pat Burrell. Roy Halladay, who threw a no-hitter in the Division Series and almost certainly will wrest the Cy Young crown from Lincecum, was on the mound in full confidence.

None of it mattered. When Brian Wilson blew the game's final pitch past Shane Victorino, the scoreboard read "Giants 4, Phillies 3."

"Humongous," Wilson said in describing the win in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series. Fifteen of the last 18 teams to win the NLCS opener went to the World Series. Humongous indeed.

Naturally, the Giants won by a run. They have played five games this postseason, all settled by that margin. This one might have been the best team effort.

Cody Ross continued his bid for enshrinement in the Mark Lemke Hall of Fame. Ross hit two solo homers against Halladay, whom the Giants attacked for four runs on eight hits in seven innings. Ross has four go-ahead hits this postseason, including both homers against Halladay.

Pat Burrell and Juan Uribe also had RBIs to cap a two-out rally in the sixth, which began with a Buster Posey single, to help the Giants stay perfect against Halladay in four games spread over nine seasons.

Most important, Lincecum outpitched Halladay in a seven-inning, three-run effort. Lincecum was not the 14-strikeout marvel he was in Game 1 of the Division Series against Atlanta. In the third inning, manager Bruce Bochy saw frustration in Lincecum and visited the mound to calm him.

Carlos Ruiz hit a tying solo homer against Lincecum in that inning, and Jayson Werth closed a 4-1 game to 4-3 with homer in the sixth.

"Just taking a 1-0 lead in the NLCS is good enough," Lincecum said. "I'll go back to the chalkboard and work on things, right the wrongs and make better pitches next time. At the end of the day, we're up in the series."

If a pitcher can backslide and still beat the consensus pick for best pitcher in the league, on the road, he must be going well.

His sense of humor remained intact, too. Asked about the whistles as he batted in the fifth inning, he said, "I was thinking I must have a really nice butt."

Ross swung his butt into a pair of Halladay sinkers and gave the Giants leads of 1-0 and 2-1 with his second and third homers of the postseason. Halladay has been in the majors since 1998. Only six other players had taken him deep twice in a game.

Posey said he wants to "bump up against" Ross for transference of mojo. Aubrey Huff called Ross "a great garbage find" by the Giants' front office.

Ross is having a hard time explaining all this. He was 3-for-16 lifetime against Halladay, including two grounders and a pop-up in the May 29 perfect game at Florida.

"This guy, he's obviously one of the best in the game," Ross said. "He's got the potential to go out there and do that every night he pitches. Fortunately, we got to him a little early and Timmy threw outstanding, and pitched well enough to win tonight."

That was in doubt after Werth's homer.

"When it was 4-1 in the sixth," Huff said, "I was thinking there was no way it's going to be this easy. Two pitches later, it's 4-3. I thought, 'That's just about right.' "

Bochy bypassed his rested and loaded bullpen and let Lincecum throw the seventh. It proved to be one of his best innings. Pinch-hitter Domonic Brown, Victorino and Placido Polanco did not breach the infield.

Lincecum said he knew he was at the end of his leash and thought, "I better make a statement here, get the guys out and give us a chance to win."

Philly's two big left-handed hitters, Chase Utley and Ryan Howard, started the eighth, and lefty specialist Javier Lopez mowed them down.

Bochy again bypassed his stable of hard-throwing setup men and went to Wilson for the four-out save. Though Wilson allowed a Werth single in the eighth and hit Ruiz with one out in the ninth, He struck out Jimmy Rollins, Raul Ibañez, Ross Gload and Victorino for his four outs.

Twenty minute later, Lincecum was addressing 50 members of the press when the cell phone in his locker rang. He turned around and said, "I've got to take this." Then he swung around, smiled at the reporters and said, "I'm just kidding."

Lincecum was in his element. After this win, the Giants seemed to be in theirs.

Box Score