Ryan Vogelsong must have wolfed down an extra plate of chicken enchiladas Saturday night, because the Giants right-hander pitched the game of his life in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series on Sunday.
Two days after Barry Zito extended the Giants’ season by throwing 7²⁄³ innings of shutout baseball in St. Louis, Vogelsong took the hill at AT&T Park and forced a deciding Game 7 by tossing a gem of his own in a 6-1 win over the
Cardinals.
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Two playoff starts, two mediocre performances.
That’s been the story thus far for the Giants’ Matt Cain, who draws the tough assignment today of trying to shut down the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in front of their rabid fan base.
After a dazzling effort in 2010 in which he didn’t allow a single earned run in 21¹⁄³ postseason innings — shutting down one potent lineup after another — much was expected of Cain when the calender turned to October.
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The most significant story line for the Giants heading into Game 2 of the National League Championship Series was, without question, their heralded starting rotation’s failure to post a “quality start” to that point in the postseason.
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Is it possible to decline home-field advantage in the postseason?
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As if Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong’s story wasn’t heartwarming enough after returning to the big leagues last year following a five-year stint overseas, the 35-year-old right hander sparkled in his first career playoff start last week and will start today’s Game 2 of the NLCS.
Vogelsong said his first experience with the postseason wasn’t what he expected.
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By:
Howie Rumberg
10/14/12 7:36 PM
Anibal Sanchez and the Detroit Tigers made the plays, benefited from an admitted missed call by an umpire and delivered during their few good opportunities at the plate.
The reward: a commanding 2-0 lead in the AL Championship Series, and a trip home with their ace ready to start.Sanchez shut down a Yankees lineup minus injured Derek Jeter, and Detroit won without any drama this time, beating New York 3-0 Sunday.
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Voters charged with selecting the National League’s 2012 Most Valuable Player had to submit their votes before the start of the playoffs, so what Buster Posey did Thursday was, for those who’d already tabbed him as their top choice, merely validation of rather emphatic proportions.
For those who did not name Posey their MVP, well ... it likely served as a not-so-subtle, non-verbal admonition along the lines of, “What the hell were you thinking?!?”
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CINCINNATI — Buster Posey insisted all along — even after San Francisco lost the first two at home — that his team was far from done, no matter how long the odds.
Turns out, he was right. And the NL batting champion had a lot to do with this most Giant comeback.
Posey hit the third grand slam in Giants postseason history on Thursday, and San Francisco pulled off an unprecedented revival, moving into the National League Championship Series with a 6-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.
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Game 1 of their respective division series held dramatically different consequences — implied, imagined and in reality — for the Giants and A’s, and such circumstances represented perhaps the most clear reflection of the teams’ hold on the Bay Area’s collective imagination.
In short, the Big Brother-Little Brother dynamic was in full effect.
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By:
The Sports Xchange
10/04/12 7:58 PM
No one saw this coming but the A’s themselves.
On Wednesday, Oakland became the first team to come from five or more games back to win a division or a pennant with fewer than 10 games to play, topping the Rangers 12-5 to complete a three-game sweep and take the AL West crown.
The A’s never held sole possession of first place this season until they recorded the final out of game No. 162.
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