Giants Defeat Phillies to Advance to World Series
All that the San Francisco Giants had to do since the end of Game 4 of the playoff series was win one more game to proceed to the World Series.
Luckily for them, they managed to do just that on Saturday night, overcoming the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-2, and they will now be advancing to the World Series, where they will play against the Texas Rangers.
The Giants can now relax a bit and try to bring the World Series trophy to San Francisco.
"We had such a diversity of contributions from everybody," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "Not bad for a bunch of castoffs and misfits."
The unlikely MVP, Cody Ross, and the rest of the Giants reached the World Series after 8 years, in 2002, but have never won the championship since moving to San Francisco in 1958. They will play at home in Game 1, on Wednesday.
"I'm speechless, just breathless," Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. "It's a great opportunity to see what we can do on a bigger stage."
After a stressed final out to end the game, the packed crowd at Citizens Ball Park in Philadelphia fell silent as the Giants celebrated. A few Giants supporters cheered from behind the visitor’s dugout.
"They play 100 percent for each other and that's really the mark of this team," Giants president Larry Baer said.
The game started with San Francisco at the bat. There were no runs and only one hit.
The bottom of the first was a very good inning for the Phillies. First to bat was Jimmy Rollins, who grounded out. Placido Polanco then walked and advance to second base after a wild pitch by Jonathan Sanchez. Chase Utley then hit a double to deep right
field, allowing Polanco to score. Ryan Howard was up next and hit a single to left field, pushing Utley to third. Jayson Werth then hit a sacrifice fly to allow Utley to score. At the end of the first, the Phillies were ahead, 0-2.
Until the third, there were no additional runs for either team.
In the top of the third, with the Giants at bat, J. Sanchez started with a single to center field. Andres Torres then hit a single to deep center, allowing J. Sanchez to get to second. Freddy Sanchez then sacrificed to the pitcher to push J. Sanchez to third
and Torres to second. Aubrey Huff then hit a single to center field, allowing J. Sanchez to score, while Torres was thrown out at home. Huff advanced to second on the throw. Buster Posey was then safe at first base after an error by first baseman, Ryan Howard,
while Huff scored. At the end of the third, the score was 2-all.
Until the top of the eighth, the score remained 2-2. The Giants came to bat with Pat Burrell grounding out, Ross hit a fly ball that was caught out, and Juan Uribe hit the game winning home run to the right for 346 feet.
The last out of the game was Ron Howard striking out after a 90 mph slider near the knees with runners on first and second.
Now that the NLCS and ALCS champions have decided, it’s time to see who the better of the two is. The World Series will take place between the Giants and the Rangers, with the first two games in San Francisco and the latter three in Texas. The first game
of the best-of-five series will take place on Wednesday October 27th, 2010, with Cliff Lee pitching for the Rangers, and Tim Lincecum for the Giants, at AT&T Park.
Lee was supposed to be the starting pitcher in the case of Game 7, but will instead pitch in Game 1 of the World Series. He isn’t worried about his performance for Game 1, stating “I was preparing to potentially pitch [Game 7 on Saturday], so I had been
on my routine like that, and now obviously I'm pitching the first game. So, I'm just going to make the adjustment and push it back a couple of days. But, yeah, it's not that big of a deal.”
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