Because of their tendency to play close games that are decided late, with much twisting of the stomach muscles and clenching of the fists, the San Francisco Giants, "a group of misfits" by their own declaration, have labeled their brand of winning baseball "torture." The end of the NLCS against the Phillies was most certainly torture, in which closer Brian "The Beard" Wilson struck out Ryan Howard in the bottom of the ninth on a 3-2 count with two men on with just a one-run lead.
If it ain't broke, why fix it? The Giants stuck with the idea of torture for Game One of the World Series against the AL Champion Texas Rangers, and it worked. But this time, they tortured not themselves, or their fans...they tortured a man named Cliff Lee.
Lee, the southpaw ace of the Rangers, postseason wunderkind who entered the night with career playoff stats like 7-0 record, 1.26 ERA, in the same sentence with Sandy Koufax and Christy Mathewson, was touched for six runs in 4 1/3 innings, five in the fifth, en route to a Game One Giants' win, 11-7.
Hailed as yet another great pitching matchup, pitting Lee versus Giants windmill Tim Lincecum, the game quickly reverted from the scripted formula. Lincecum gave up three first-inning hits, and a run scored on a hard chopper by Vladimir Guerrero that bounced off Lincecum's leg into no-man's-land. Then, in what he would later call "a brain fart", he got a chopper back to the mound, saw Rangers' third-baseman Michael Young running for the plate, and ran after him. Giants third baseman Juan Uribe waited for a throw, waited, and waited. Lincecum never threw it, apparently forgetting the amount of runners on base. Fortunately for him, the next batter, Texas second baseman Ian Kinsler, grounded into an inning-ending double play.
Lincecum, who pitched a two-hit, fourteen-strikeout shut out in his postseason debut in the NLDS against the Atlanta Braves, gave up another run in the second, but it quickly became apparent that Lee wasn't himself either. A Michael Young error opened the door for an RBI double by Freddy Sanchez (who had four hits in this game, including three doubles in his first three World Series at-bats, a first) in the third, then rookie catcher Buster Posey tied the game with a single, but Lee pitched out of more trouble by striking out Pat Burrell and Cody Ross.
But, in the fifth inning, it all fell apart for Lee and the Rangers. By the time Sanchez hit his third double of the night, with one out, there were two runners on, and it became 3-2 Giants. Lee stuck out Posey. Two outs. Then Ross hit a missile up the middle that almost took Lee's head off. 4-2. Then Aubrey Huff slapped a single into right field, 5-2. Lee was then pulled, and he rushed off the mound quickly, looking like he wanted to duck under the tide of inevitable backlash against his first real postseason stinker. The man who relieved him, submariner Darren O'Day, promptly gave up a three-run homer to Juan Uribe, making it 8-2, and slapping Lee with seven runs, six earned.
After looking energized to start the sixth, and striking out the first two, Lincecum got into trouble, allowed two runs, and was pulled. In the process of unraveling, he took a hard Mitch Moreland line drive off the back of his left thigh. But reliever Santiago Casilla got out of it by striking out Rangers' shortstop Elvis Andrus (first World Series participant ever named Elvis), leaving it at 8-4.
In the eigth, the Giants, who were shocked and awed by their own power display when they hung six runs on the Phillies in Game 4 of the NLCS (first time they had topped four runs in about four weeks), they scored three more times, with backups Travis Ishikawa and Nate Schierholtz sandwiching RBI hits around Sanchez' mind-boggling fourth double of the night, with also drove in a run. 11-4, Giants.
While the Rangers would take on three in the ninth, including a two-out, two-run double by Nelson Cruz off closer Brian Wilson, that would be it. The Rangers surprisingly dropped Game One, their first-ever World Series game, behind the glittering left arm of their untouchable ace.
"I was trying to make adjustments," Lee, who got the loss, said. "I was up. I was down. I was in. I was out. I was trying to find it, and I was never really consistent with what I was doing."
"We know he throws a lot of strikes," Freddy "Doubles" Sanchez said of Lee. "We know he's one of the best pitchers in the game, especially in the postseason. We just wanted to attack him early."
Well, they attacked, and tortured, Lee, and the Rangers, en route to a World Series Game 1 victory. The Rangers also committed four errors, twice their misplay output in the six-game ALCS and the first four-error World Series performance since the 2004 Red Sox (who did it twice).
But the Rangers did lose Game 1 of the ALCS, and still won the series.
But the Giants did win Game 1 of the NLCS, and won the series.
Something's gotta give.
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