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

Giants finish off Braves, on to Philly

Henry Schulman SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

There was a time in the not too distant past when they said the road to a World Series championship went through Atlanta. The Giants knew that road. They happily traversed it in 2002, and now they have done so again.

The Giants came from behind twice Monday night to beat the Braves 3-2 and win their Division Series three games to one, then celebrated on the same field and inside the same bubbly-soaked clubhouse as they did eight years ago, when they won their only other Division Series.

All four games this year were decided by one run.

The Giants advance to their fifth National League Championship Series and will face the Philadelphia Phillies, who will enter as favorites because they have home-field advantage, not to mention the last two NL pennants.

Game 1 in Philadelphia on Saturday should pit Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay in what would be the most anticipated matchup of this postseason. They both pitched shutouts in their only Division Series starts. Lincecum struck out 14. Halladay threw a no-hitter.

The Giants scored the decisive run Monday on a bases-loaded RBI single in the seventh inning by Cody Ross, who had four big hits in a series that did not feature a lot of scoring.

Rookie Madison Bumgarner once again pitched like a man with years more experience as he held Atlanta to two runs in six innings, good enough to beat 37-year-old postseason master Derek Lowe. There can be little doubt Bumgarner earned a spot in the NLCS rotation.

Santiago Casilla relieved Bumgarner and got five outs. He should have had six, but shortstop Edgar Renteria, who entered in a double-switch, dropped a soft liner by Alex Gonzalez. Renteria threw out Gonzalez, but Brian McCann should have been doubled off first because he ran on the play.

With McCann on second, Javier Lopez relieved Casilla and struck out Jason Heyward to end the eighth. Wilson, as he did in the division-clincher against San Diego, pitched a scoreless ninth to get the party started.

At 21 years and 71 days old, Bumgarner became the youngest Giant ever to pitch in a postseason game and the youngest pitcher on any team to start a postseason game since 20-year-old Bret Saberhagen in Game 2 of the 1984 American League Championship Series, for Kansas City.

Even in allowing the game's first run, in the third inning, Bumgarner was poised. He did not allow leadoff singles by Omar Infante and Matt Diaz to become a big inning even with the 3-4-5 hitters up next. Infante scored on a McCann sacrifice fly, but the rookie walked off the mound down only 1-0. That proved critical.

The Giants were down 2-1 on McCann's solo homer in the sixth when they took the lead against Lowe with a seventh-inning rally about as small as it could get. They sandwiched walks to Aubrey Huff and Pat Burrell around a Buster Posey infield hit to load the bases.

Lowe walked Burrell after Bobby Cox visited the mound. It looked as though Lowe made a case to stay in. Cox acceded in what was his final big decision as a manager.

Cox summoned sidewinder Peter Moylan to face Juan Uribe, who was 1-for-13 in the series when he hit a ball into the hole fielded by the shortstop Gonzalez. The fielder spun and threw to second, but umpire Ed Hickox ruled the throw pulled Infante off the bag. Everyone was safe, and Huff scored the tying run.

Pinch-hitter Aaron Rowand struck out against the new pitcher, lefty Jonny Venters, but Ross hit pay dirt for the second time in the game when he grounded a single to left that scored Posey. Burrell was thrown out trying to score behind him, but the Giants took a 3-2 lead.

With one out in the sixth, Atlanta leading 1-0 and Lowe throwing a no-hitter, Ross lined a homer into the left-field seats to tie the game, the third of the four big hits he had in the series.

The tie did not last one pitch in the bottom of the sixth. McCann lined Bumgarner's hanging offspeed offering just over the right-field wall to restore Atlanta's lead at 2-1.

Manager Bruce Bochy was concerned before the game about Lowe, who allowed one run in Game 1 only to lose to an epic performance by Lincecum.

"The guy we're facing today, he's tough," Bochy said. "He's been throwing the ball well. We've seen him a few times and he's still tough."

Lowe retired the Giants 1-2-3 to start the game, the first time they went down in order in the first inning since Jhoulys Chacin struck out the side in Colorado on Sept. 24.

Box Score

Giants rally in ninth inning for 3-2 victory

Associated Press

Brooks Conrad bobbled a grounder. Then he dropped a popup. Finally, a hard shot skidded under his glove in the ninth inning for his third error of the game, allowing the San Francisco Giants to rally for a 3-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday.

The Braves were within one out of taking control of the NL division series, but a 30-year-old journeyman infielder who wouldn't have been playing if not for season-ending injuries to Chipper Jones and Martin Prado simply couldn't catch the ball.

Buster Posey's grounder went right under Conrad's glove, his worst miscue yet in a performance that might speed up the retirement of Braves manager Bobby Cox.

Freddy Sanchez raced around with the go-ahead run, and Brian Wilson shut down the Braves in the ninth to give the Giants a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.

San Francisco can close it out Monday night. For Conrad, the memories of this game will linger for a lifetime. He tied a postseason record for errors in a game and became the fourth second baseman to make three, according to STATS LLC.

Atlanta did nothing against Jonathan Sanchez, managing only two hits in 7 1-3 innings, and the Giants led 1-0 on an unearned run provided by Conrad's second error, that dropped popup in short right field in the second.

But when pinch-hitter Eric Hinske lined a two-run homer off Sergio Romo in the eighth, the Braves took a 2-1 lead.

Unfortunately for Atlanta, there was no Billy Wagner to close it out. He was removed from the roster before the game with a pulled muscle on his left side.

Rookie reliever Craig Kimbrel was within one out of a save before the Giants rallied. Aubrey Huff tied it with a run-scoring single off Mike Dunn. Then, Posey hit a grounder to just the right man.

It skidded right through Conrad and into center field.

The wild finish overshadowed Jonathan Sanchez's brilliant performance - he didn't allow a hit until the sixth - and Hinske's dramatic homer, which carried the Braves to within one strike of having a chance to close out the series at Turner Field.

Conrad's blunders cost them.

He was one of the last guys to make the Braves roster out of spring training and spent his first full year in the big leagues. Conrad was primarily a backup, though he did provide one of the season's most dramatic moments with a pinch-hit grand slam that capped a seven-run ninth inning and a 10-9 victory over Cincinnati in May.

Then Jones hurt his knee, and an injury finished off Prado for the season, too. Down the stretch, the Braves were forced to go with Conrad at third base.

His defense was so shaky that Cox swapped him with Omar Infante before the crucial last game of the regular season with the Braves trying to wrap up the wild card, moving Conrad to second because he was having trouble making accurate throws from third.

His arm wasn't the problem in Game 3.

Now, the Braves will need to win the final two games to extend Cox's career to at least the NL championship series. One of baseball's winningest managers is retiring at the end of a season that is one loss from being over.

In the ninth, Kimbrel retired Cody Ross on a popout to Conrad - yep, he caught that one - but pinch-hitter Travis Ishikawa drew a walk. Andres Torres took a called third strike and it was all up to Freddy Sanchez with the standing-room crowd of 53,284 going nuts.

Sanchez was down to his last strike when he smacked a single to center, keeping the Giants alive. That was it for Kimbrel, who was replaced by another rookie, the left-hander Dunn. He got ahead on Huff, but the first baseman yanked a slider over the outside corner into right field, the throw from Jason Heyward not even close to getting Ishikawa as he slid across with the tying run.

Peter Moylan took over for Dunn and got what he's known for: a ground ball from Posey. Unfortunately for the Braves, it was to Conrad.

Sanchez and Atlanta starter Tim Hudson had quite a pitcher's duel. The lone run off Hudson came after Mike Fontenot led off the second with a triple to right. Heyward raced back to the wall and had the ball in his glove, but it popped out when he slammed hard into the padding.

Heyward fell face-first onto the warning track and was slow getting up. Cox and a trainer raced out to check on the rookie, who was able to stay in the game after a few minutes to catch his breath and sip a drink brought to him from the nearby Atlanta bullpen.

Cody Ross followed with a popup into short right. Heyward might have made an attempt on it, but he got a late break and wasn't running hard, perhaps still a bit groggy from his collision with the wall. But Conrad, looking back into the setting sun and running hard, got there in time to make the catch - only to have the ball pop out of his glove.

Fontenot, who wasn't tagging, raced in with the first run while Conrad fumbled for the ball.

Sanchez was nearly as dominant at Tim Lincecum in a two-hit, 14-strikeout performance that carried San Francisco to a 1-0 victory in the series opener. The left-hander baffled the Braves with a slider, striking out 11 and not giving up a hit until Hudson, of all people, singled to right in the sixth.

Nothing came of that.

Then, after Alex Gonzalez started the eighth with a single and Conrad - in yet another blunder - popped up a bunt, Hinske connected.

It was in the eighth when Giants manager Bruce Bochy appeared to make another ill-fated call to a bullpen that coughed up a 4-1 lead in Game 2 at San Francisco. The Braves rallied to tie that one, then won it 5-4 on Rick Ankiel's 11th-inning homer into McCovey Cove.

Bochy made the move after the Braves sent up right-handed Troy Glaus as a pinch-hitter. When the right-handed Romo trotted in from the bullpen, Cox countered with the switch-hitting Hinske.

Good choice. The guy who has played in the last three World Series with three different teams - Boston, Tampa Bay and the New York Yankees - fell behind 0-2 in the count and fouled off several pitches just to stay alive. Finally, after working the count to 2-2, Hinske lined one into the right-field corner and sent the crowd into a frenzy.

The next inning, there was nothing but stunned silence except for those who mustered the energy to boo Conrad.

Box Score

Braves defeat Giants with homer in 11th

Andrew Baggarly
MercuryNews

The Giants needed six outs to take command of their NL Division Series, and for more than a month, their bullpen was as unyielding as Alcatraz.

But the Atlanta Braves staged one heck of a prison break.

They put up three runs against Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson to tie the score in the eighth inning Friday night, and Rick Ankiel clicked the final tumbler in the 11th, splashing a solo home run into McCovey Cove to propel the Braves to a 5-4 victory in Game 2 that evened this best-of-five series.

The Giants' bullpen finished the regular season with 24 consecutive scoreless innings and a 0.90 ERA from Sept. 1. But the Braves didn't fear the beard. And now this series is a close shave.

"That eighth inning can't happen in the postseason," said Wilson, who inherited runners at the corners and gave up a tying, two-run double to Alex Gonzalez.

"I'm the only one standing on the mound. I needed to get six outs, and I didn't. "... It's already past me. Game's over."

You couldn't blame an overflow crowd of 44,046, the largest in AT&T Park history, for feeling that way much earlier.

Pat Burrell's three-run home run in the first inning struck like a fist to the sternum, and Matt Cain didn't allow the Braves to counterpunch while holding them to an unearned run in 62/3 innings.

But Atlanta led the National League with 46 come-from-behind victories this season, including 25 in its final at-bat. And the Braves stormed back after Romo allowed consecutive singles to start the eighth.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy attacked the flickering rally with a pressure hose, going to his bearded, tattooed closer in the hopes he would convert the first six-out save assignment of his career.

Wilson had the chops for the assignment. He pitched two innings or more 12 times in his career, and he had recorded 10 saves of four outs or more this season -- the most by a closer since the Boston Red Sox's Jonathan Papelbon in 2008.

"At that point, we want to stop them," Bochy said.

Wilson appeared to have Melky Cabrera overmatched, but Cabrera managed a tapper to third base, and Pablo Sandoval's errant throw on the run caused Aubrey Huff to take his foot off first base as a run scored.

After a sacrifice bunt advanced both runners, Wilson left a fastball at the belt to Gonzalez.

"I saw he was struggling with the heater in the first game and the better part of this one, so I'm going to throw mine. That's my best pitch, and he got a good piece of it.

Wilson retired the next five hitters, and Ramon Ramirez dispatched four more before Ankiel, a converted pitcher with dangerous power, connected on a towering shot. It was the second splash homer in the postseason, along with Barry Bonds' homer in Game 3 of the 2002 NLCS.

The Giants nearly won it in the 10th after a brilliant bit of small ball.

The Braves put Billy Wagner on the mound to start the 10th, and Bochy sent up pinch hitter Edgar Renteria, who might have made the roster because of his two-run homer off the Braves' closer in the April 9 home opener.

But after taking one big rip at the first pitch, Renteria surprised the stadium by dropping a bunt down the third-base line. The ploy was no doubt inspired by the Braves' double switch to start the inning in which lumbering Troy Glaus went to third.

Andres Torres sacrificed Renteria to second base, and Wagner clutched his hip in pain after fielding the bunt. He limped off, later diagnosed with an oblique injury that almost will certainly shelve him for the series.

Kyle Farnsworth hit Freddy Sanchez with a pitch on the right hand that had him howling in pain. But he stayed in the game, and Bochy said he looked to be all right.

Huff drew a walk to load the bases for Buster Posey, who grounded into a double play -- a rare failure for the brilliant rookie.

"I didn't get the job done," Posey said. "I take pride in being in that situation, and plain and simple, I didn't get it done."

Huff sought to shield Posey, saying the failures were team-wide.

"We got the lead early and went into cruise control," Huff said. "If we get another run or two, there's a chance they fold.

We had our chances way earlier than (the double play). We've got to right that ship and have better at-bats when the game is on the line."

At least the Giants averted total disaster in the first inning, when Posey and Sandoval remained down for several seconds after colliding while chasing a foul pop.

Posey said he took a good shot to the shoulder but was all right. Sandoval said he just had the wind knocked out of him.

In the end, the entire team took one to the gut.

Box Score

Giants' Tim Lincecum shuts down Braves in Game 1

Andrew Baggarly Mercury News

The Atlanta Braves are baseball's gold-standard franchise when it comes to starting pitching. But only one man on the mound was worth his weight Thursday night.

All 170-something pounds of it.

Tim Lincecum turned around the Braves and sat them down, proving his might and value extends far beyond a mere collector of Cy Young Award trophies. The Giants benefited from an apparent blown call before pushing across a run on Cody Ross' two-out single in the fourth inning, and Lincecum made that slim advantage as secure as Fort Knox while going the distance for a 1-0 victory in Game 1 of their NL Division Series Thursday night.

While a surging crowd roared its approval, Lincecum pitched as if he was playing a 119-note jazz set. He improvised with his lethal changeup and slider -- a pitch he began throwing with regularity just a few weeks ago -- and pumped fastballs past the Braves' slow bats in the latter innings.

The limber little ace wasn't subtle on his final pitch. He pumped a 92 mph fastball straight down the middle as Derrek Lee, his head deeply pondering the breaking stuff he had seen all night, let it pass for Lincecum's 14th strikeout.

Lincecum only gave a subtle fist pump -- a puddle of still water with a stadium reverberating around him. Afterward, he talked of his workday as if he had just spent eight hours as a mall cop.

"It's hard to judge what better would be," he said. "If you come out on top, I think that's good."

His teammates were more effusive.

"It's one of the best pitching performances I've ever been a part of," said Ross, whose RBI single scooted under third baseman Omar Infante's glove. "It's so, so, so much better to be on this side. I know I never felt comfortable facing him. He's capable of doing what he did tonight day-in and day-out."

Reliever Sergio Romo was amazed that coaches asked him to unbutton his jacket in the eighth inning.

"They said go warm up, and I'm thinking, 'Why?' " Romo said. "Hey, I was a fan today. I was entertained from the first pitch to the last pitch. I've never seen that before, especially in the magnitude of a game like this.

"Holy cow. He had his A-plus game today."

Lincecum obliterated the Giants' postseason record of 10 strikeouts, last accomplished by Jack Sanford in Game 5 of the 1962 World Series at Yankee Stadium. Hal Schumacher (1936), Carl Hubbell ('33) and Jesse Barnes ('21) were the others.

Lincecum also finished two behind the division series record of 16 strikeouts, set by Kevin Brown for the San Diego Padres in 1998.

As playoff debuts go, it didn't quite match the no-hitter that Philadelphia's Roy Halladay threw Wednesday. But it was close enough. And while this is putting the parade float before the horse, if the Phillies and Giants coast through, it is possible that you could see a Lincecum-Halladay collision in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series.

Halladay has the look and build of a pitcher meant to stare daggers into hitters deep into October. But there were some who questioned whether Lincecum was ready to put a season's labor on his slender shoulders.

He rebounded exceptionally well from a woeful and winless August in which he lost all five of his starts.

"We never lost confidence in this kid," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "He was searching there for a little while, but he found it. He went out there and pitched as fine a ballgame as you can pitch.

In the second inning, Lincecum did the unimaginable. He threw 14 pitches, nine for strikes -- every last one of them a swing and a miss.

"I don't know how many he struck out, but it was more than fingers on my hands," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "His breaking stuff is always out of the strike zone. Easier said than done: 'Don't swing at it.' It's almost impossible."

Lincecum and catcher Buster Posey switched to fastballs in the later innings, sensing the Braves were either late or tentative to swing.

"Their swings were telling me what I needed to throw," Lincecum said. "The game will show you. "... And I've got Buster back there helping me, so that makes it twice as easy."

The Braves' questionable gloves, a questionable umpiring call and a very questionable move by Cox allowed the Giants to break through in the fourth.

Posey hit a leadoff single and stole the first base of his major league career when Bochy put him in motion with two strikes on Pat Burrell. Braves right-hander Derek Lowe struck out Burrell, and replays appeared to show that second baseman Brooks Conrad applied his high tag before Posey reached the base, but umpire Paul Emmel called Posey safe.

Was he? Posey, Boy Scout that he is, answered honestly. And if he chopped down a cherry tree, he would admit to that, too.

"I guess it's a good thing we don't have instant replay right now," he said, smiling.

The call made a huge impact, but so did Cox's strategy.

After Juan Uribe struck out, Cox opted for Lowe to walk Pablo Sandoval intentionally -- even though the impatient hitter swung at two pitches out of the zone while striking out in his first at-bat.

Ross followed with a ground ball to the left side that was better placed than struck. It scooted under Infante's glove -- a play many third basemen would have fielded -- and took so long to reach Matt Diaz in left field that Posey scored without a play.

"We made the right move," Cox said in a terse interview session. "We made an error. He made the pitch and got a ground ball. We kicked it."

And Lincecum kicked it into overdrive.

"You get that one run, and you know how valuable that is in the postseason," he said. "So you try to turn it into shutdown mode."

Box Score

Giants clinch playoff spot

Henry Schulman SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle

Call them what you will: The Freak or The Franchise, Big Daddy and Huff Daddy, B-Weezy and Buster Ballgame, Pat the Bat and the Panda, oooh-REE-bay and Andres the Giant, Sanchy and Sanchy.

Just remember to call them 2010 National League West champions.

The Giants own the title for the first time since 2003 after beating San Diego 3-0 on Sunday to eliminate the Padres, who owned a 6 1/2 game lead in the West on Aug. 26, before their season reached quicksand.

As they might be saying in the Border City this morning, "Torture!"

The Padres must spend the winter wondering how they could win 12 of 18 against San Francisco in 2010 yet still be forced to watch the Giants celebrate on the field at AT&T Park, where 42,822 fans joined the party.

The Giants finished 92-70 and captured their seventh West championship since divisional play began in 1969, their first under manager Bruce Bochy and first in the post-Bonds era.

The Giants will host Games 1 and 2 of their Division Series on Thursday and Friday against Atlanta, which beat Philadelphia 8-7 then won the wild card with the Padres' defeat. .

Jonathan Sanchez, so good down the stretch, was the man of the hour. He not only carried a shutout into the fifth inning, he hit his first career triple, off Mat Latos with one out in the third, that launched a two-run rally that gave the Giants the early lead that eluded them in the first two games of the series.

With two outs, Freddy Sanchez lined a single up the middle to score the pitcher. Aubrey Huff then sliced the first pitch to the wall in left-center, the ball eluding a diving Chris Denorfia.

Buster Posey, whose ascent sparked the Giants' title run, hit a leadoff homer in the eighth against Luke Gregerson.

In August, Jonathan Sanchez boldly and some might say foolishly, predicted the Giants would sweep San Diego in a series in San Francisco, assume first place and not look back.

Sanchez's roadmap might have been off a bit, but he got the destination right. At te same time, he let the baseball world know he is no flighty left-hander who might wilt in a big game. This was his finest hour, which might have sewn up the third spot in the playoff rotation.

Casilla relieved Sanchez with two aboard and nobody out in the sixth, and got Yorvit Torrealba to ground into a double play, the outs at third and second. With a slower runner, it might have been a triple play.

Ramon Ramirez bailed out Casilla in the seventh, striking out Miguel Tejada on a 3-2 fastball to strand two and leave Adrian Gonzalez on deck. Javier Lopez retired Gonzalez on a pop fly to start the eighth.

Sergio Romo got the final two outs of the eighth and Brian Wilson pitched the ninth for his 48th save. He not only won the major-league saves crown but tied Rod Beck's franchise record.

As they had done so often this season, the Giants produced a huge when - in this case their biggest - after a tough defeat, two of them, actually. The Giants entered this game 8-1 in series finales since Sept. 1, averaging 6.1 runs pre game.

The division championship is a testament to a great pitching staff built through the system, the emergence of Buster Posey, shrewd moves by the front office before and during the season to build an offense and exceptional clubhouse chemistry.

"It's a credit to the guys and a credit to the organization and the makeup of this group," left fielder Pat Burrell said earlier this week. "If everybody has the same goal, which should be to win, it's real easy to have chemistry."

Box Score